Necode wrote:
AS I understand it in NFPA 70 E 130.7 table any Panel 240 volts and below require Category 1 PPE. Also NFPA says any voltage 120 volts Phase to Phase is not required. If so shouldn't Residential Electricians also comply?
Prior to the 2015 edition that's not what it said. The first question you should ask yourself is whether or not a hazard (never mind a risk) even exists.
There has been at least one fatality recorded by OSHA in 2009 involving a pair of residential electricians disassembling a construction panel (in flip flops and shorts) because they didn't want to wait for the lineman to arrive to disconnect it. So in my mind...there's your answer. I haven't seen any evidence to achieving over 1.2 cal/cm2 at 120 VAC. The situation changes quickly as the voltage approaches 240 VAC and above. I collected a whole bunch of research on the subject and put it together here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6mGR ... Dl5VzlDSWMNote that there is a difference though between a hazard and a risk. A hazard implies that something bad COULD happen. It does not suggest that it can happen. Given that it is obviously an extremely rare event considering that I've only been able to find one single case of a fatality, that does not mean that there is a significant risk.
So I'd suggest that doing this might be a good practice/precaution but it's certainly not a significant risk.