Assured Equipment Grounding Conductor Program
When is a written Assured Equipment Grounding Conductor Program required?
Our manufacturing site uses GFCI near sinks and around wet operations, but not every outlet in the building is GFCI. Would we be required to have a written procedure?
Comments (11)
You have a choice: use GFCIs everywhere (whether portable or as part of the circuit), or you can use an AEGCP (or both). If a GFCI is not feasible due to design or other reasons (e.g., equipment operating >120V and/or >15A/20A), then you have to use an AEGCP. Anywhere you're not using an AEGCP, you have to use GFCIs.
The AEGCP is more thorough, so it may be more "leg work", but it's the more protective of the two. OSHA has a webpage (link below) that summarizes the requirements of an AEGCP. It requires a Competent Person at each site where it's used, documented inspections and testing, site-specific written procedures, and several other things to be in place.
https://www.osha.gov/electrical/hazards/aegcp
Wow! You learn stuff everyday! Never ceases to amaze me that the more I think I know the more I find out I do not know!
I have been in this business for a very long time. I even have stressed the use of GFCIs in my company and now my customers most of all those years. In all these years never heard of AEGCP! Maybe it was there and just did not take note.
Few of my smaller customers would even know what I am talking about should I bring up ASGCP! I have to so some study just so I know!
Drew, does anyone really do all this? Your OSHA link uses references to 1926. The 1910 reference has to be in 1910.304 I would think. I do not play in 1926 very often.