I'd like to introduce you to your industry safety standard, UL-1776

[Flipper 14]

As a manufacturer, it is critical for us to maintain safety certifications for liability reasons, but more importantly, because its just the right thing to do. Many people who work in this industry have burn scars, are missing toes, suffered water injection injuries, have been shocked, or worse. Pressure washers are an inherently dangerous piece of equipment and if operated outside of manufacturer recommendations, or built without safety features, can be deadly.

UL-1776 was established 21 years ago and was based on a Canadian (CSA) safety standard. It took what the Canadians started and then expanded the requirements to meet UL's more stringent regulations. The standard covers both electric as well as engine powered machines. Virtually every function on the system is addressed, for example -

1) Hoses must have shrouds to protect operators from burns in the event of a rupture

2) Wands must be at least 48 inches long on machines more powerful than 3200 psi

3) Any machine with more than 100 psi must come with a trigger gun

4) Machines must come with a temperature control switch that shuts off the burner if the water overheats

5) Must have an unloader valve

6) Must have backflow protection

7) Must have a rupture disk to protect against the excessive build up of pressure

8) Electric units must have water resistant power cords longer than 35 feet long, fitted with a GFCI

9) Electrical components must be individually certified and then subjected to a dielectric voltage-withstand test to find any current leakage that could cause a short.

10) Machines are subject to flooding and water spray test and drop impact testing

11) The machine must have different fittings between the hose and the gun, the gun and the wand, and the wand and the nozzle. This prevents people from sticking nozzles on the gun or even in the hose (which believe it or not people use to actually do).

And so on.

We and most of the other larger equipment manufacturers, have spent MILLIONS of dollars engineering equipment and then having it inspected and certified to UL-1776. Compliance to this standard is the first consideration when engineering a new machine or even making improvements to the existing line.

I just discovered your forum this week. One of the first things I did was a search for UL-1776 and I didn't get a single hit. As you can imagine, it is somewhat of a surprise to me to come to a forum for the very people the safety standard was designed to protect, and not find a single reference to the standard anywhere in any thread ever posted.

I am going to attach some information on how the standard was developed and how the US Military has adopted this UL standard. The standard itself is over a hundred pages long and is simply too large to upload to this site. Hopefully this thread will spread some awareness of the standard and promote a discussion on equipment safety.

Air Force UL-1776 Safety Flash 11-01.pdf

UL-1776 Approval& Standards.pdf

[Patrick Rhea 15]

Wow! I have a new 4200 psi pw from Dewalt plus my Heated TM and I don't even know if they have all those safety features....?

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www.fastfinishor.com

[810F250 14]

Philip is there a requirement for smaller manufacturers in the US to meet these standards UL-1776 specs? Thanks for posting

[Flipper 14]

No, unless they want to do business with the US Military which requires that all of their machine must be UL-1776 certified. Some manufacturers have not gone through the certification process because adding all of the safety features required for certification increases the price of the pressure washer. If the majority of pressure washer customers are unaware of the safety standard and are buying on price, a manufacturer may reason that its worth it to ignore the safety standard to obtain a competitive price advantage.

[Rapid HotClean 26]

Wow! I have a new 4200 psi pw from Dewalt plus my Heated TM and I don't even know if they have all those safety features....?

Sent from the Fast Finish IPad

www.fastfinishor.com

Probably a dumb question, but what's a "Heated TM"?

[Patrick Rhea 15]

Truck mounted system. It is basically a hi trek pressure washer with up to 300 degree heat.

Sent from my iPhone

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Welcome to The Grime Scene Flipper!

I am responding to your surprise of no equipment safeguards topics.

The topic range into what we are responsible for as the 'end users'.

As I can only speak for myself and Beth, we have been aware of the Canadian safety regulations built into each machine as many manufacturers have adopted them into their designs such as a machine being able to withstand direct spray from a wand and still operate through sources during our activities with the Power Washers of North America organization.

We gladly welcome any input you may have and thank you for adding to our forums your knowledge on this topic.

For what it is worth, we don't have too much to keep tabs on where this topic is concerned but you do bring up one that I didn't see incorporated into the designs and that is a shroud on the hose.

The hoses bought most commonly have a quasi plastic/rubber 8"-10" bend restrictor by each hose end fitting, but I don't think this is what you are referring to. Most breaks happen further down the hose.

Funny, now that you mention it, I have one hose in my spares which has a significantly longer restrictor which could function as a shroud. It is 3' long. The ONLY hose I have which has one as a matter of fact.

Perhaps that would be a safety design hose manufacturers of which may read this forum to consider.

Rod!~