Voltage Exposure by Electrician/Job Class

[afassl]

At the request of one of my clients, I'm being asked to help them write into the apropriate job description what voltage exposure is recommended for the specific position. Examples are: Plant Operator (I wouldn't expect any), Millwright (same as before), Instrument Tech (<120v??), Apprentice any level, Journeymen and Foreman. The expectation is that any electrician apprentice and up will have been trained in NFPA 70 E & B and have undergone some type of high voltage awareness training. There are some contractors that group exposure by labor class and if anyone could share, that would be most helpful. Thank you.

 

[Jraef]

OSHA requires that all employers have a program of electrical safety, training, exposure controls etc. but it stops just short of requiring the use of NFPA 70E, but strongly recommends it. The general consensus is that if you don’t use NFPA 70E, your home grown program had better look an awful lot like it. I suggest starting there.

The exposure threshold in 70E for requiring specific safety precautions and electrical training is 50V. 120V is not a valid threshold as it can be just as lethal as 480V in MOST circumstances (as opposed to 50V requiring a number of things to go wrong at the same time to become dangerous). This is why things like telecom, fire alarms, instrumentation etc is often limited to 48VDC.

So basically, if anyone is going to be exposed to 120V and up, they all need to be “qualified electrical workers” with specific training per the 70E program requirements, which require periodic review of the program administrators and periodic training and refresher courses for the workers.

70B is for companies engaged in contracted electrical maintenance, basically NETA (National Electrical Testing Assoc.) certified contractors, not for electricians in a facility.

 

[petersonra]

What are you calling high voltage?

I mostly agree with the previous poster.

People who have any exposure to live wires need electrical safety training.

It is entirely possible that millwrights and other tradesmen could come across situations where there are live wires. They need to be trained in how to safely identify and deal with them. One way to do that is to tell them to stay away from them once they have identified them as potentially energized.

Here is a question for the OP. Because we know electricians are godlike and never make mistakes, if motor needs changing and a millwright is called to help change it, is it ok for the electrician to put his lock on an open disconnect, test for electricity and declare it safe so the millwright can just add his lock? Or does the millwright need to verify the absence of voltage.