Are Arc Flash Labels Required?


blog author iconJon Travis
date icon2021 / 11 / 30
blog views icon5737
Are Arc Flash Labels Required?

Are you wondering if you even need arc flash labels in your facility? 

I mean, isn’t there some other way to do it? 

Or a simpler version of the label that doesn’t require engineering calculations?

What is required by law?

Is an arc flash study required by code?

In this article, we will answer these questions and more!

Here is what you’ll learn:

  1. Are arc flash labels required?
  2. What does the law require?
  3. What do the standards say?
  4. Your two options
  5. What is the bare minimum?
  6. The bottom line

Let’s go!

 

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Are arc flash labels required?

questions about safety

The simple answer is YES.

You absolutely need to warn people of the potential that an arc flash hazard may exist inside any of the electrical equipment where it’s possible.

The thing you really need to consider is how much information are you going to put on your label?

And more importantly… how are you going to get that information?

Let’s go a little deeper into the rules and regulations before exploring our options.

What does the law require?

arc flash labels required by osha

In North America, every province and state will have slightly different laws regarding electrical safety and arc flash. 

Most won’t even have the words arc flash in them… 

So does that mean arc flash labels are not required?

What about an arc flash study?

Not exactly.

What each of the jurisdictions will have in common is a statement that generally described “electrical hazards” or at least “workplace hazards”.

As an employer, you are obligated by the law to identify the hazards within your workplace and let people know about them.

What the law doesn’t tell you is how to do that.

To understand how you need to turn to industry standards and codes.

What do the standards say?

There are really only two generally accepted and widely used electrical safety standards in North America… NFPA70E (US) and CSAZ462 (CAN).

The nice thing is that they are practically identical, so if you have divisions of your company on both sides you can pretty much take the same approach.

In a nut-shell here is what they say:

  1. You need a plan to protect your workers from arc flash and shock hazard;
  2. You need to identify and quantify the hazards;
  3. You need to provide proper mitigation (typically PPE & tools);
  4. You need to train everyone on all the related procedures; and
  5. You need to audit the entire process.

Numbers 2 and 3 are what we are talking about here… identify and quantify the hazards in order to figure out what PPE you need to wear.

They give you two options.

Your two options…

options for arc flash warning

The standards give you two methods to decide on what arc flash clothing you need for a particular job.

  1. the incident energy analysis method (read “arc flash study”); and
  2. the arc flash PPE category method.

If done correctly, both options would satisfy the requirements of the law… the trick is, can you ensure they are being done correctly?

Using the arc flash study correctly

The arc flash study starts with a good single line diagram and a visit to your facility from an engineer.

Data is collected on each component of your electrical system with the engineer helping to identify what equipment requires an arc flash label.

The data is then modelled in special software to help identify each hazard level.

Finally, labels are printed and applied to each of the pieces of equipment.

The electrical workers now have a label they can trust on every piece of equipment that gives them the information they need to select the appropriate PPE.

Advantages: Very straightforward

Disadvantages: Engineering intensive

Using the PPE category method correctly

The PPE category method asks you two key questions and then recommends the PPE to wear.

  1. What equipment am I working on?
  2. What kind of work am I doing?

You simply look at the tables provided in the standard and then select the appropriate PPE.

But there is a catch…

The tables indicate you need to know the maximum available fault current and the maximum fault clearing time.

Oh… umm… yeah, this is where the PPE category method falls apart. 

Because now you are either doing these two things:

  1. Ignoring the requirements and therefore using the tables incorrectly; or
  2. Getting engineering done to determine maximum fault current and clearing times.

Advantages: I actually can’t think of any… unless you already know the maximum fault clearing time and fault currents… then it would cost as much as an arc flash study.

Disadvantages: Results are very conservative (ie. your people end up wearing a lot more PPE than required, which means they either don’t wear it or are very uncomfortable).

You can probably see I’m not a fan of the category method.

What’s the bare minimum?

You might be asking yourself, “are arc flash studies required by code?”…

Great question!

Let’s look a little deeper.

To meet the electrical code your hazard warning label must include that there is a potential for arc flash.

Something like this…

basic arc flash warning labels

So, to satisfy the code… you don’t need to do an arc flash study.

However, the problem with this is that it really doesn’t help out the electrical worker.

You know that there is a potential for arc flash… but you don’t know how bad it could be. 

This means you have to figure out what PPE to wear by using the tables in the back of either CSAZ462-18 or NFPA70E.

And, you should already know how I feel about the table method (see above).

Arc Flash Study Services

What would be a better label?

A label that was a bit more useful would be a label that includes the details of the arc flash hazard. 

All arc flash hazards are not created equal so you really should figure this out at every location in your facility.

The way to do this is with an arc flash study.

The results of the arc flash study will give you the incident energy (how hot things will get), the arc flash boundary (how far unprotected people should stand back) and the working distance (an expected distance that the worker is standing).

Here’s what a basic arc flash warning label with incident energy information would look like.

arc flash warning label

This label has much more utility than the basic label.

But we could still do better!

What does the BEST label look like?

best arc flash label

The best type of arc flash label would also include information about the shock hazard. 

Now, I understand that this is not exactly what we are talking about but 95% of the time, if you are dealing with an arc flash hazard you are also dealing with the shock hazard.

So why not include some of the important information… 

arc flash label

The bottom line

If you're trying to figure out if arc flash labels are required and the code is all you are worried about then the basic label shown above will do just fine.

Once you introduce maintenance work into the equation (whether it’s your own employees or contractors) then you need to think about the more specific information they need and what they are going to do with it once they get it.

At that point, I would recommend the detailed electrical hazard label, which would require an engineering study to get it done properly.

But here is how I look at the situation…

By law, you need to protect your workers from arc flash (and shock).

You do that by following the standard.

The standard gives you two options.

The first option (category method) doesn’t work very well.

The option I recommend (incident energy analysis) works great!

So…

Get an arc flash study done and keep it maintained.

Otherwise, you will have a hard time proving your due diligence to comply with the law.

The end.

 

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped explain the importance of arc flash labels. Do you know anyone else that would benefit from this blog? Use the share buttons below to share the content. 

If you have any questions, you can always reach out to me at jon.travis@leafelectricalsafety.com

Looking To Learn More About Arc Flash Studies?

Download our free Definitive Guide to Arc Flash Studies to help get a more detailed understanding of the potential arc flash hazard at your facility.

Comments
Comments (1)
  1. Sanjay Sanjay
    Excellent grasp of the subject and write up. Thanks
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