How Hot is Hot?

Several days ago I had a customer ask how hot an equipment surface would need to be to require guarding against someone coming into contact with it. I thought it was a great question and I thought I would share some of the information I provided below. 

So, how hot does a piece of machinery need to get before it’s guarded?  Well, roughly, skin will burn at 122°F, so above that and you need to provide protection. 

So, how hot is your machine running? One simple solution for determining temperature would be an infrared thermometer. An IR thermometer will measure the surface temperature from a safe distance. Also, an IR thermometer will give you insight as to how hot normal running conditions are, alerting you to a high running temperature.

Once you’ve identified how hot the machine is running you will know how much of a problem you may have.  Your job as an employer is to engineer out the hot surface hazard, if possible.  If it’s not possible you need to provide personal protective equipment and guard the area from potential employee contact. You should also make sure that there are clear markings identifying the hot surface.

The guards can be anything from a custom built guard fabricated in-house to a physical barrier. Conney offers basic signs, as well as hot indicator labels that identify the hazard when it reaches a hazardous temperature.  Talk with the Conney safety support team for more information.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 7:45 am and is filed under Safety Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.