NFPA Journal - July/August 2018 - 39

In Compliance
advertised as senior apartments) and
board-and-care facilities adequately
address the level of protection of occupants who choose to age in place.
Thresholds for mandating risk analyses
for mass notification systems.

New to the 2018 edition of the code,
some occupancies picked up the menu
option in the new Section 9.14 that
requires a risk analysis to be conducted
to determine if mass notification
should be provided and how extensive the system should be. For the next
edition of NFPA 101, these occupancies
will take a closer look at the thresholds
established for when the risk analysis is required and whether or not any
adjustments to those thresholds should
be made.
Tall wood building construction types
and limits.

Select occupancies in the code, such
as assembly and day care, currently
mandate limitations on the construction type of a building based on the
number of stories in height and the
presence of sprinklers. As NFPA 5000,
Building Construction and Safety Code,
further recognizes and refines the use
of mass timber construction, occupancies will need to re-evaluate their
construction type limitations to make
sure they consider the presence of mass
timber construction, if permitted.
Protection of existing high-rise
apartment and business occupancies.

Several public inputs have been
submitted that propose changes to the
provisions recognizing an engineered
life safety system as an alternative
design for protecting existing high-rise
apartment and existing high-rise business occupancies in lieu of the building
being protected by an automatic sprinkler system. Proponents of the changes
include authorities having jurisdiction
and NFPA's High-Rise Building Safety
Advisory Committee.
NFPA welcomes and encourages
participation throughout the process.
To follow the 2021 revision cycle, access
meeting agendas and minutes, and
review the technical committee actions

from the upcoming First Draft meetings, visit nfpa.org/101next.
Kristin Bigda, P.E., is principal fire protection
engineer at NFPA. NFPA members and AHJs can
use the Technical Questions tab to post queries on
NFPA 101 at nfpa.org/101.

NFPA 70 + 70E

Electrical Safety

Telling a consistent story
for achieving electrically
safe work conditions
By Derek Vigstol

n my travels this year,
one thing has become
very clear: the electrical
industry is in high gear
over safety. Everywhere I
turn, I see news of a speaker on NFPA
70E®, Electrical Safety in the Workplace®, a presentation around safe
work practices, or how maintenance
plays a role in keeping workers safe.
This is fantastic news, of course. Even
so, I'm bothered by a persistent thought:
Are we all telling a consistent story?
How electrical safety is implemented
within a company's overall safety
program is important, and communicating a consistent message is critical
to getting buy-in across an organization. Imagine if you worked for five
different employers over a span of
15 years and each one had a different interpretation of what steps to
follow-it's safe to say this would lead
to some head scratching and doubt. No
one wants to follow a plan they lack
confidence in.
Consider the requirement in the
2018 edition of NFPA 70E that all
preventative and protective risk
control methods must be implemented according to the following
hierarchy: elimination, substitution, engineering controls, awareness,
administrative controls, and personal
protective equipment. Since this hierarchy of risk control methods became
part of NFPA 70E, I have heard

I

different ideas of how the hierarchy works from all over the electrical
industry. Having different opinions of where a control falls on the
list, however, can have tragic consequences. It is important to understand
that there can be multiple controls
employed in order to reach the ultimate goal of eliminating the hazard.
A great example of how this works is
the process of establishing an electrically safe work condition. Article 120
includes the steps necessary to establish that safe condition; only after all of
those steps have been taken-especially
the final one that verifies the absence
of voltage with a properly rated test
instrument that has been operationally tested before and after on a known
voltage source-can a hazard be considered eliminated. However, the process
of getting to the end goal of elimination requires the utilization of multiple
control methods. That's why it's important to approach this task as multiple
tasks, each employing its own method
for risk control.
A lock out/tag out program, for
instance, has written procedures that
an employee must follow. If any of
these steps are not followed, the final
de-energized state cannot be considered an electrically safe work condition.
What if the skipped step was locating
all possible sources? Absence of voltage could be verified from one source,
but not a second service or backup
generator. Because of all the steps and
procedures included in a proper lock
out/tag out, the process becomes an
administrative control combined with
awareness, requiring employee training
to be performed correctly.
Another example is in the verification that electrical energy has been
removed. While there are new products entering the market that allow
for verifying zero voltage without
exposing employees, the tried-andtrue method remains manual testing
with a test instrument. And since the
hazard isn't gone until it has been
verified, it must be assumed that
the employee performing this test is
exposed to the full hazard. This usually
means that an employee will put on
N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2018
