Many people face little-to-no safety hazards at the office each day, but if any of your employees work with electrical equipment, they always need to exercise plenty of caution. When things go wrong with electrical currents, people can sustain serious injuries — or even death. Consequently, it’s important to ensure your team members receive proper training and always take every necessary precaution to keep themselves and everyone around them safe.
It takes just 3 milliamperes of electricity to cause injury to the body. Bodily harm can range from bruises — on the lower end of the spectrum — to bone fractures and can even result in falls or collisions that end in death.
5 Key OSHA Regulations on Electrical Protective Equipment
In order to keep everyone safe, electrical protective equipment must be properly maintained and handled on a daily basis. Even the slightest lapse could have catastrophic consequences. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has specified a number of regulations that must be followed, including:
- Rubber insulating equipment must be appropriately marked by class and/or type. It may also include other relevant markings, such as size of the equipment and manufacturer identification.
- All electrical equipment must be able to withstand the OSHA designated ac proof-test voltage or the dc proof-test voltage, ensuring it can handle the voltage indicated.
- No piece of electrical equipment should contain any physical deficiencies — that can be identified through tests or inspections required by OSHA — that could negatively impact the insulating properties of the equipment.
- All protective equipment used for the primary insulation of employees from energized circuit parts must pass a current test when subject to the greatest nominal voltage for which the equipment is used.
- Generally speaking, electrical protective equipment should be properly maintained in a safe space. Additionally, all insulating equipment must be inspected for damaged prior to use each day and after any incident that may have potentially damaged it.
For more information on OSHA regulations on electrical protective equipment, read the official document in full.
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