Safe or not?


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Old 08-04-05, 08:59 PM
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Safe or not?

The kid next door (24 yrs old) has a pretty girlfriend who is a beautician. She has no shop but visits up-scale clients in their homes. The kid built her a wheeled cart with a countertop including a sink, drawers, shelves... The sink has a pump to draw from a 15-gallon tank and another 15-gallon tank for waste. The cart also has dual duplex 15 amp receptacles one of which is a GFCI that protects the other. They are in a weatherproof box that also has a male twist lock 15 amp connector. He has made three cords; each has one end with a female connector to mate with the male twist lock connector. Cord #1 has a standard 3-prong male to connect with a grounded receptacle. Cord #2 has a polarized 2-prong connector and cord #3 has a non-polarized 2-prong connector. This covers all likely receptacles that his girl may find at a clients home.

The problem is that the girl is a licensed beautician and OSHA requires that all of her electrical equipment MUST be connected to a safety ground.

I told him to have his girl write to OSHA and get a waver as I feel using the cart will not compromise safety. What do the pros think?


...
 
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Old 08-04-05, 09:09 PM
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First off,,, why show everyone everything? Just the common 3 prong. I would tend to think the rest of it is an excercize in mental masturbation anyway,,, are these others common where a standard 15A recept isnt? The twist lock would have been totally unneccesary, just a common 3 prong and if worse come to worse an adapter,,, way too much thinking here.
 
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Old 08-04-05, 10:01 PM
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Originally Posted by sberry27
First off,,, why show everyone everything? Just the common 3 prong. I would tend to think the rest of it is an excercize in mental masturbation anyway,,, are these others common where a standard 15A recept isnt? The twist lock would have been totally unneccesary, just a common 3 prong and if worse come to worse an adapter,,, way too much thinking here.
Are you saying that non-grounded receptacles are a rarity and she should ignore the OSHA requirement?
 
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Old 08-05-05, 04:36 AM
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I think that this setup is much safer than simply having a 15 amp cord and plug and using an adapter when there is no three prong receptacle.

I have no idea what OSHA or local regulations would have to say about this.
 
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Old 08-05-05, 08:18 AM
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Originally Posted by 1Geniere
...visits up-scale clients in their homes.
I would hope that a client who is so well off that she can't be bothered to drive herself to the salon can afford a home with modern wiring...

In my opinion the safety ground would be unnecesary given the GFCI protection. You could give it a shot, OSHA may be more forgiving if your neighbor is self-employed.
 
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Old 08-05-05, 09:37 AM
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I think that this setup is much safer than simply having a 15 amp cord and plug and using an adapter when there is no three prong receptacle.
How would be adding a twisty in the system and then adapting to an ungrounded plug be any safer? I fail to see where the twisty added anything of any value in this besides adding several more parts and connections. A 99 cent adapter would have done the exact same thing. I am not sure how osha feels about it but being gfci does make it work,,, and the osha isnt just to protect her but the client also.
 
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Old 08-05-05, 10:13 AM
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1910.334(a)(3)(i)

A flexible cord used with grounding type equipment shall contain an equipment grounding conductor.

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owad...ARDS&p_id=9911

This tells me that if the equipment she is using has a 3-prong plug, then a grounding conductor is required. Does she use grounding type equipment?
 
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Old 08-05-05, 10:29 PM
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Originally Posted by thinman


This tells me that if the equipment she is using has a 3-prong plug, then a grounding conductor is required. Does she use grounding type equipment?
The pump does, not sure about the tools. Maybe that’s the solution. Thanks for the link, I’ll print the thread and pass it along.

Thanks for the replies.

...
 
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Old 08-06-05, 11:03 AM
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OSHA has no say for the self-employed, so unless she has employees that use this cart, there's no need to worry.
 
 

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