Which of the following are PPE that can be used to ensure safety when working with power lines Check all that apply?

Many dangers come with working with electricity. That’s why it’s important to take the necessary precautions, including wearing the proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and following safe work practices. In this blog post, we will discuss what PPE you should wear when working with electricity and some of the safe work practices you should follow. Stay safe out there!

When working with electricity, it is absolutely essential that you wear the proper PPE. This includes rubber gloves, insulating mats, and face shields. It is also important to ensure that your clothing is made of non-conductive materials. If you are not properly protected, you could be seriously injured or even killed if you come in contact with an electrical current.

In addition to wearing the proper PPE, you should follow certain work practices when working with electricity. These include always using tools that have been properly grounded, never working alone, and always following all safety instructions from your employer. If you take the necessary precautions, you can stay safe while working with electricity.

Personal Protective Equipment

Use safeguards for personnel protection and electrical protective equipment [29 CFR 1910.335(b)].

Employees who work directly with electricity should use the personal protective equipment required for their jobs. This equipment may include rubber insulating gloves, hoods, sleeves, matting, blankets, line hoses, and industrial protective helmets designed to reduce electric shock hazards. These help to reduce the risk of electrical accidents. General safe practices include:

• Electrical protective equipment must be periodically tested by the test tables found in OSHA 1910.137, Electrical Protective Equipment.
• Insulating equipment must be inspected for damage before each day’s use. It’s best to inspect any PPE you use, including insulating equipment, before and after each use.
• Equipment with defects affecting its insulating properties must be removed from service and returned for testing.
• The arc-rated protective clothing and other protective equipment generally must cover the worker’s entire body, except for hands, feet, head, and face, which may be protected by other PPE.

Also Read: Why Workers Don’t Wear PPE & How Can You Motivate Them

Work Practice Controls

Your employer is required to make sure extension cables and other flexible leads that are particularly prone to damage to plugs and sockets and their connections are visually checked, maintained, and, where necessary, replaced before using portable equipment. The ends of flexible cables should always have the cable’s outer sheath firmly clamped to stop the wires from pulling out of the terminals.

It is necessary to select and use appropriate work practices [29 CFR 1910.333].

• Use the correct cable connectors or couplers to join lengths of cables together, and do not allow taped joints.
• Electrical installations are installed and maintained by a competent person and checked regularly.
• Make sure socket outlets are not overloaded using adaptors.
• Make sure electrically powered equipment provided is suitable for use.
• Fixed electrical equipment should have a clearly identified switch to reduce power in an emergency.
• Verify that portable equipment labeled as double insulated has had the live and neutral wire connected properly to the plug by a competent person unless the plug is of a molded type.

• Insulated Gloves – Insulated gloves will prevent electricity from traveling into your hands should there be an exposed wire, short circuit, or other issue.
• Insulated Matting – Insulated matting will put a protective layer between the employee and the floor. This is helpful when working at switchboards, transformers, and other high-voltage areas. It can help prevent electricity from traveling up from the floor into the person’s body, as well as eliminating a path for electricity to travel through the body and out to the floor.
• Insulated Ladders – Insulated ladders won’t transmit electricity into the person who is using it. If a normal metal ladder accidentally touches a live electrical wire, it can be devastating. With the insulated ladder, this isn’t an electrical concern.
• Rescue Rods – In the event that someone is being electrocuted, people will be tempted to rush in to save them. Unfortunately, this will only lead to them becoming electrocuted as well. Having a rescue rod present will allow those in the areas to pull the victim to safety, or push the source of the electricity away.
• Voltage Detectors – Even after a power source has been removed, there can still be electricity in a system because of capacitors. A voltage detector will show the level of electricity in a given system at the current time, so employees won’t mistakenly begin working on a system until all power has been eliminated.

Options for PPE

Each piece of personal protection equipment will be rated for different levels of electrical current. The more powerful the electricity, the more insulated or protected the equipment needs to be to keep employees safe. Wearing the wrong PPE can be just as dangerous, or even more so, than wearing no PPE because it can give a false sense of safety. Make sure you have the proper equipment for a given environment to get the best possible results.

Similar Questions

Additional Resources

A typical method of selecting personal protective equipment (PPE) is to use what has always been provided, such as hard hats, safety shoes and glasses, and hearing protection (if in a loud area). For power line work, rubber-insulating gloves can be added to this list. However, this practice can be dangerous. Each job’s specific circumstances must be analyzed to ensure protection is provided. Consider a simple piece of equipment, such as shoes. In most situations, the right shoes for electrical work would be ones with an appropriate Electrical Hazard (EH) rating. They isolate the worker from ground. However, these may not be a safe option for an electrician performing live-line bare-hand work who needs to stay at equal potential with the system.

To identify hazards and ensure proper PPE selections, you must analyze the work environment and the operations performed. This analysis can be simplified by placing the hazards into basic categories. Each can be associated with the harm they may cause.

Generally, hazards come from an energy source. The most common one is electricity. Energized wires and equipment are an obvious hazard. Others such as chemical energy, radiation, and falling object energy are less recognizable. A Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) or other source of information may be needed to determine if an object or substance is dangerous. MSDSs frequently recommend the PPE needed to handle the materials.

The employee may also be the energy source. For example, a sharp object will not cause harm unless energy is applied to it. Someone must fall upon it in order for it to penetrate the body causing injury. Even a harmful dust with no energy may become a hazard when your body’s energy reacts with it.

Inspect the work area. Evaluate every object. Does it have potentially harmful energy? Will it cause harm if energy is applied? What is the potential for harm? Once the hazards are classified, the appropriate controls can be identified. The table below (from NECA’s Manual—Personal Protective Equipment: A Guide for Selection, Care, & Use in the Electrical Contracting Industry) can help identify common hazards.

Once the hazards have been identified, consider the body parts affected. Using a common hazard, electrical energy, a review of exposed body parts would be performed. While working on electrical lines and/or equipment, it is possible for the head to contact live parts. A Class E hard hat is needed. Depending on the voltage, rubber-insulating gloves and/or sleeves may be required. Because of the arc potential, safety glasses are needed. A face shield may be required.

This same theory should be applied to all operations and include all energy sources and exposures. Evaluate fall hazards. Falls are the result of gravitational energy and affect employees or any other items at elevated surfaces. To protect employees, personal fall arrest systems can be used. Hard hats can protect employees from falling objects.

Whatever the hazard or energy source, the proper PPE can protect the employee. However, an effort must be made to eliminate hazards through engineering or administrative controls first. The standards found in the 29 Code of Federal Regulations 1926 Subpart E Personal Protective and Life Saving Equipment reference the use of PPE only where it is not feasible to reduce exposure by other means. With hard hats, additional protection is needed.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires two forms of overhead protection. Either netting to catch objects, barriers to isolate the area where objects may fall, or some other protection is needed with hard hats.

NECA’s Manual—Personal Protective Equipment: A Guide for Selection, Care, & Use in the Electrical Contracting Industry (Index #5120), is an excellent resource regarding regulations. For more information, contact Dave Potts at (301) 215-4526. EC

O’CONNOR is with Intec, a producer of safety manuals with training videos and software for contractors. Based in Alexandria, Va., he can be reached at (703) 628-4326, or by e-mail at .