A few weeks ago I was working with a manufacturing company that was looking to reduce the noise exposure in their shop by replacing several loud and inefficient air guns. They were looking to maintain a sound level of less than 85 dBA to stay within OSHA guidelines for allowable noise exposure levels . Excessive noise levels in the work place can lead to serious illness/injury, irritability, increased stress, reduced production and ultimately very costly OSHA fines.

During normal operation, their Industrial Hygienist used a calibrated sound level meter and was taking readings of 101+ dBA at a distance of 1′ away from the exit of the nozzle. A sound level that high would mean the operators would be limited to 1-2 hours of total exposure for the day per OSHA Standard 29 CFR 1910.95(a) referenced in the chart above. With their continuous machining operations running on 8 hour shifts, their need to replace the guns to increase personnel safety had become vital.

After discussing the application and safety requirement, I recommended the customer order our Model # 1299 Soft Grip Safety Air Gun with 1103 Mini Super Air Nozzle and a Model # 1299-12 (the same but adds a 12″ extension) and test them under our Unconditional 30 Day Guarantee. The unit with the 12″ extension would provide the same blowoff, but allow the operator to maintain a safe distance from the machine tooling during operation.

Completing their internal tests with the EXAIR solution, the customer was able to reduce the sound level to 81 dBA @ 40 PSIG, meeting the internal requirement of less than 85 dBA while also gaining OSHA compliance. They are now in the process of replacing all of their unsafe units with (8) of the Model # 1299 and (5) of the Model # 1299-12.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN