Potential dangerus meter situation

I recently sat in on a lecture by a well known Hazmat Expert. The topic was tactial meters. Here is a scenario that really made me wonder about our equipment. If for some reason your LEL sensor was not working correctly, your meter could allow you to enter a space in a truly dangerous situation. Long story short, your meter's low oxygen alarms is set to go off at 19.5% oxygen. Room air is typically 20.9% oxygen. Methane has a LEL of 5%. If you displace 5% volume in a space, your oxygen would read 19.9%. This could potentially put you at the LEL of Methane with no warning. Moral of the story is...no your meters and make sure that they are working before you use them.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on November 20, 2008 at 1:29pm

That is how this entire conversation started. Basically, that was the awareness that I was raising in the first place. You could have bad sensors, or be in a bad situation. Like was already mentioned, more than one technology should be use all the time anyhow.