Summary:

  • While your spray booth manufacturer should ensure that your booth is compliant, you should also check with your local agencies to guarantee yours is up to code.
  • Regulations are in place to ensure the safety of your staff, your customers and the outside world.
  • There are federal, regional and local regulations that every manufacturer has to follow, but it’s best to start at the local level, as those typically encompass both regional and national safety codes.
  • The NFPA, IFC and OSHA are the three largest governing bodies when it comes to regulations, and are responsible for overseeing and adding any additional code requirements.
  • Spray Systems is dedicated to staying up-to-date with all applicable safety codes for your unique industry when designing your spray booth.

Installing a large equipment paint booth at the site of your business is not as simple as just putting it up and getting started. It’s a much trickier process that takes time and requires you to follow certain regulations.

In this post, we’re going to look at the different levels of regulations to ensure your booth is designed and installed to meet them in earnest.

Code Compliance

Some equipment and retailers of the equipment will make sure that the paint booths they sell are already in compliance with the codes associated with your city, state, and country. Unfortunately, though, this is not always the case.

Always check with your local agencies to ensure your booth is up to code. You may have to make some key modifications to your equipment in order to make sure that you’re compliant with the codes.

Why so many regulations?

There are many regulations that are required at the local, state and national levels for the design and installation of large equipment paint spray booths to ensure safety to both your employees and the outside world. Straying from required regulations can endanger your business and employees, not to mention put you at risk for hefty fines.

For example, if things are improperly installed or designed, you could potentially risk your booth malfunctioning, resulting in operator health risks and facility hazards, including fire. This can cause damage to the booth and building, and it may even cause injuries along with fines.

Where to start?

It’s always a good idea to start locally. You’ll want to examine what kind of codes are in place in your city, as well as in your county, state and federal requirements. There will be many codes to sift through, but it’s best to target the codes in your city, as these will most likely apply to your booth installation and will have the most valid information for you.

Suffice to say, code compliance is considered to be quite a local thing.

What are the codes?

Knowing what the actual codes are can be kind of confusing when you look into the language involved. For that reason, we’re going to break each of them down into simpler terms so that you can really come to an understanding.

NFPA-33

This is the National Fire Protection Agency ‘s most common spray booth code, and it does quite a good job of describing how to spray booths are designed and then constructed. It also covers airflow requirements as well as fire protection.

IFC

This is known as the International Fire Code. This is an international standard that’s in addition to NFPA-33 and is very extensive, where it applies to spray booths and other equipment and applications. See Section 15 where it specifically applies to spray booths.

OSHA

Also known as the Occupational Health and Safety Requirements. Each state has codes in place that guarantee worker safety. Many states will simply restate whatever the federal codes say.

The chapters that pertain to spray booths are often going to copy NFPA-33, but NFPA-33 is usually revised before that federal OSHA code.

The wording here focuses primarily on worker safety, so there are going to be more regulations that concern themselves specifically with ventilation, material handling, noise levels and more.

While this list isn’t exhaustive and doesn’t delve too deeply into paint booth regulations, it does help to remind you of the compliance codes to keep in mind when designing and installing a large equipment paint spray booth. All of Spray Systems’ large equipment paint booths meet NFPA-33 and IFC safety and code requirements. Our booths are designed with your business, your employees and the outside world in mind, keeping them safe while maintaining the high quality finish your products require. Contact us today to get started.

 

 

 

 

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