paint booth safety Archives : Paint-Booths.com

Fire Prevention Week and Your Paint Booth.

October 9^th – 15^th is National Fire Prevention Week

Practicing fire prevention within your paint booth could make the difference between life and death. To protect your business and the lives of those who work within the booth, it’s important to work safely all year long. Read our previous post on how we raise the standard of safety.

THE NATIONAL FIRE PREVENTION ASSOCIATION

If you own a paint booth, you should be familiar with the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA). The NFPA was established in 1896 and is devoted to eliminating death, injury, property, and economic loss due to fire, electrical and related hazards. They have an extensive list of codes and standards, but NFPA 33 is the code specific to paint booths and applications using flammable or combustible materials. It includes processes designed to reduce the risk of fire due to flammable paints and coatings. It’s an important safety document but is a small part of a much bigger safety picture. Other considerations, such as local requirements, International Fire Code (IFC), or OSHA requirements, must also be met before the paint spray booth can be safely used. Failure to comply with regulations on a state and local level can get a business fined or penalized.

TOP TIPS FOR PAINT BOOTH FIRE PREVENTION:

Assess fire risks often and develop a safety plan to include training, crisis response, and inspection schedules.
Replace clogged filters and clean out overspray buildup in the booth and in the fan. Flammable material overspray is a dangerous source of fuel for fire ignition and proper booth ventilation reduces the buildup of flammable material. Make sure you have an adequate amount of CFM to avoid saturating the air with too much flammable material.
Install fire extinguishers, automatic sprinklers, and other fire suppression equipment as directed by the city or county fire chief.
Identify all ignition sources and move them away from the booth. (Common sources of ignition are light fixtures, switches, and certain types of fans.)
Store and mix paints away from spark-producing devices, ideally in a paint mixing booth.
Designate a smoking area away from the building. Cigarettes, matches, and lighters are a common risk in many workplaces, particularly those that don’t designate smoking areas for employees. Companies should provide facilities for smokers, including enclosed ashtrays that are separate from areas with flammable or combustible substances.
Updated material safety data sheets for all dangerous substances used in production.

FIRE SUPPRESSION FOR YOUR BOOTH.

The best way to protect your business from a fire is to install a paint booth fire suppression system, a necessity that is required in many areas across the country. These systems limit the damage and loss to equipment in the case of a fire by monitoring your booth 24-hours a day. A fire may destroy the paint booth but will protect the fire from spreading to the entire building. For more information on fire suppression systems, check out our FAQs on Fire Suppression.

SOME OTHER WORKPLACE SAFETY TIPS TO CONSIDER:

Clear and accessible escape routes, practiced regularly with fire drills.
Fire extinguishers that have been inspected monthly and serviced yearly. Ensure they are the proper size and located throughout your facility.
Fully working fire alarms that have been tested regularly.
Fire precautions within a safety plan that has been given to all employees.
Train your staff on fire safety, including fire extinguisher training.
Designate a smoking area with enclosed ashtrays

Top 5 Paint Booth Safety Measures

No matter what kind of paint spray booth you have, it’s essential to make sure you are taking all the necessary precautions to keep your shop and personnel safe. By following a few simple guidelines, you can reduce the risks of fire, air quality problems, and damage to your products. Here are some of the most important safety measures for spray booths.

1. Protect Air Quality

Whether your spray booth is designed for wood finishing or automotive painting, the primers, varnishes, and finishing products that it uses contain hazardous chemicals that can damage equipment and/or create health problems. A properly functioning paint booth reduces the threat of these chemicals in several ways:

Creating a closed space for the finishing process
Capturing overspray before air is exhausted outside the booth
Providing makeup air to maintain balanced air pressure in the booth and shop
Heating the air so that the finishes cure faster

To maintain good air quality in your shop, it’s essential to operate your spray booth according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Make sure to use proper exhaust filters and ductwork. Run the ventilation system at all times during spraying operations and for a suitable time afterward to clear vapor from the air.

2. Reduce Fire Risks

Most finishing products are extremely flammable, so it’s vital to take steps to mitigate fire risk. The three components that can cause an explosion or fire are an ignition source, oxygen, and flammable material. Standard paint booth operation converts liquid finishing products into airborne particles, and these particles then collect on equipment and in overspray filters. It’s not possible to remove oxygen from the air in and around the paint booth, so you must control the last remaining element: ignition.

Many actions can create sparks: drilling, welding, and using other types of equipment with high friction levels. You can help eliminate the chance of sparks by installing mats that reduce static and ensuring light fixtures are sealed properly. Make sure both your shop and the paint booth itself have adequate fire detection systems. Automatic sprinklers and other fire suppression measures are essential as well.

An ETL-listed paint booth has an electrical control panel that meets the highest safety standards. Even if your state does not require you to use ETL-certified equipment, purchasing an ETL-listed model can help you feel confident you are mitigating fire risk as much as possible.

3. Follow All Safety Codes and Standards

Safety codes and regulations are in place to help you create and maintain a safe work environment. Paint booth safety requirements come from several different organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Fire Protection Association, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Your state may have additional regulations. While you may not have the time or desire to memorize all the details of applicable safety regulations, there are a few basics you should know:

Paint booths should be made of strong materials, such as concrete or steel
Booths should have proper exhaust systems
Spray booths should be grounded, and electrical equipment should be designed for use in a flammable environment
Fans should have integrated spark-arrestor systems
There should be a clear space of at least 3 feet around all sides of the booth, including the top
You should post appropriate and clear safety instructions

You should only purchase a paint booth that complies with all relevant codes, including specifications from your local Fire Marshall, building inspector, and insurance provider. It’s also essential to make sure your booth is installed by a professional who follows local building codes.

4. Create Safe Storage and Mixing Procedures

Solvents, paints, varnishes, and other flammable liquids must be stored and handled safely. Personnel should wear proper protective equipment during all phases of operation: mixing, moving, and applying finishes.

It’s best to have a designated storage space or room that is separate from the rest of your shop and from the paint booth. It’s also important to mix finishing products in a space with good ventilation and fire suppression equipment. A paint mixing room makes it easy to safely store and mix your finishes.

5. Complete Preventative Maintenance

Setting up your shop and your paint booth properly is the first step to creating a safe operating environment. However, maintaining that environment is just as important. Follow the preventative maintenance guidelines for your spray booth:

Replace intake and exhaust air filters according to the manufacturer’s recommended frequency
Keep all hoses, fans, and other equipment clean and free of overspray and debris
Check your ductwork and seals periodically, and repair any leaks
Complete any maintenance tasks recommended by the manufacturer

Routine maintenance helps your paint booth operate safely and efficiently.

Keep Your Finishing Operations Safe

Choosing a high-quality paint booth is the first step toward creating a suitable environment for finishing operations. Other vital safety precautions include performing equipment maintenance tasks, using suitable PPE, and changing air filters frequently. When you purchase a paint booth from us, you can feel confident that your new spray booth complies with all NFPA, OSHA, and EPA guidelines. If you have specific requirements, we can also develop a customized booth for you.

Spray Booth Code Requirements

CODES,CODES, CODES. (Spray Booth Code Requirements). It’s like when you’re in school and it’s always rules, rules, rules. They can be challenging, but we all know that they exist to promote the safe design, production and use of spray booths. They are what keep the folks working in the booth safe.

The codes are founded on common sense and from incidents from the field, like fires and explosions.

Governmental agencies or third-party groups, like the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) or Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL), create, administer and enforce the codes.

As a manufacturer of paint spray booths, the codes are very important to us, and everything we do to create the safest work environment for our customer that is possible.

THE THREE “C’S” AND HOW WE USE THEM:

Compliant – Compliant means that Standard Tools uses the code as the basis in guiding our design, production and documentation. We meet or exceed the requirements based on our interpretation of the code.

Certified – A third-party testing lab like Intertek/ETL tests our booths and compares our production to the code and judges it to meet or exceed the code requirements. When we pass the testing, we get certification. We label our product, trace the product after it’s sold and go through a routine audit by the NRTL to ensure that Standard Tools continues to comply with the code.

Complete – This term means that all of the requirements in the code have been met by Standard Tools. The NFPA codes for spray booths go beyond the design, production and documentation that Standard Tools provides. There are requirements within the codes about the location of the spray booth, an adequate air supply and the use of licensed electricians.

With a car, there is a lot of responsibility that falls on the driver. You could have a really safe car, that was manufactured correctly, but if you fail to wear your seat belt, or you drive carelessly, it won’t matter how safe that car was made. It’s the same with a spray booth. A certified spray booth can be installed in an uncertified manner and that negates the entire certification. There are responsibilities of the spray booth owner. The owner is required to know and follow the instructions of safe installation and use that is provided with their spray booth from Standard Tools and Equipment.

CODES CORRELATED TO SPRAY BOOTHS
Standard Tools and Equipment is informed on the codes that apply to spray booth manufacturing and use. We understand how intensive and baffling the “code” can be … hey, sometimes we think that it may as well have been written in actual ‘code’ language

because it would seem just as foreign. Here’s a brief snippet of the codes and how they relate to spray booths.

NFPA-33 Spray Application of Flammable or Combustible Materials. This top-level code drives all other codes that are specific about spray booths and mixing rooms.

OSHA 29CFR19 10 Section 94 Ventilation and Section 107 Spray Application of Flammable or Combustible Materials

This is Federal code from OSHA with more detail about actual spray booth performance and how it relates to worker safety.

IFC International Fire Code, Chapter 15
This is an International code with less detail than NFPA-33. This often applies to spray booths in foreign-trade zones or in businesses owned by International organizations.

EPA’s NESHAP Rule XXXXXX and Rule HHHHHH
This is Federal code that defines maximum air quality emissions for auto body shops and industrial plants relative to spray operations.

State and local codes typically mimic federal codes but may have added requirements for local considerations like weather or seismic issues.

ANSI Z83.4 and CSA STD 3.7
American and Canadian codes relating to direct-fired heated air makeup systems.

UL-508A and CSA STD 22.2 No.1 4
American and Canadian codes relating to electrical control panels.

Canada has no active top-level code for spray booths. They recognize NPFA-33 and/or IFC Chapter 15. They do have codes that are specific to the electrical requirements and heated air makeup units.

Codes are not laws. Codes are enforceable guidelines to be interpreted by authorities such as local permitting agencies, insurance agencies and federal agencies, such as the EPA. The law is that a spray booth cannot be operated without a final permit to occupy. The ruling authority provides that occupancy permit based on their judgment of the codes and the spray operation. Every effort should be made to comply with the codes, but special situations may be permitted if the ruling authority deems the situation as acceptable.

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