Do I need Respiratory Protection?
After you find your ideal eye and face protection, you can still be exposed to the headaches, the sore throats, and the general fatigue that only seems to lessen when you’re on holiday. All welding fumes contain pollutants and the injuries they cause are insidious. Often illnesses due to welding fumes take many weeks, months and sometimes years to become apparent.
Obviously, good ventilation is required for all working environments. To contain welding fumes, the two most common methods are local exhaust ventilation and “on-gun, fume-exractors”. It can be hard and time consuming to use this kind of equipment so that you can get the correct protection. All fume extractors can, regrettably, also remove valuable shielding gases, tempting the welder to turn down the ventilation.
Given the potential limitations of ventilation systems, it may be necessary to use personal respiratory protection to complement the exhaust systems to reduce exposure to contaminants to the lowest achievable level.
How many grams of fume particle do you ingest every year?
To protect welders, safety authorities in each country have set Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) for specific fume pollutants. Unfortunately, these upper limits may still expose the everyday welder to certain levels of contamination. For example, if the combined OELs for a work area are 5mg/m3 or higher, you could inhale 11 grams or more of welding particles every year. *
* Under normal working conditions the respiratory rate is about 20 litres of air/minute. Over a working year (100%), a welder inhales about 2,300 m3 of air. Under working conditions with 5mg/m3 of welding particles in the air, a welder breathes in 11 grams of particles/year.
Protection Factors indicates pollutant reduction
The AS/NZS standards specify the minimum performance requirements a product must meet. Respirators are also classified by the protection factor they provide. The protection factor of the respirator indicates how much the pollutant is reduced (or filtered from the air) before it reaches the user.
For example:
A manufacturer of galvanised fences measures 30mg/m3 of zinc oxide in the workplace air. The Occupational Exposure Limit (OEL) is only 5mg/m3. The airborne zinc oxide exposure to the welder, therefore, must be reduced by at least a factor of 6 (30mg/m3 divided by 6 = 5 mg/m3). A respirator with a minimum protection factor of 10 required.
Immediate symptoms from exposure to welding fumes:
- Eye and skin irritation
- Nausea
- Headache
- Dizziness
- Metal fume fever
Chronic insidious, injuries on:
- Respiratory tract and lungs (including lung cancer)
- The central nervous system (Parkinson’s Disease etc.)
The multiple benefits of personal respiratory protection
- Products provide nominal protection factor up to 50 (Powered Air) and 100+ (Supplied Air)
- Improved worker comfort: a cool, refreshing atmosphere within the helmet
- Integrated protection