Hello

I would like ask how to tackle electromagnetic fields risk assessment as required by The Control of Electromagnetic Fields at Work Regulations 2016 as we have more than 5 employees.

I was thinking aound the lines to do separate risk assessment just for electromagnetic fields for whole organisation with listed all electric equipment.

Any thoughts about the topic? Any example of this risk assessment?

Many thanks

Artur

This is an issue that we are currently grappling with. The legislation, HSE guidance (HSG 281) and EC guidance (Non-binding guide to good practice for implementing Directive 2013/35/EU) gives a schedule of items that can be scoped out of the assessment. In most workplaces this will be sufficient to establish compliance with the legislation (properly recorded of course).  However, in my work place we have VHF base stations mobile stations and RADAR installations which cannot be scoped out and a full assessment of the risk will have to be undertaken.

My issue is trying to get appropriate information from the manufacturers of the equipment we use to enable us to undertake a suitable assessment. We may have to resort to physical measurement of EM levels, although I gather from my reasearch that this has its own issues.

I would suggest that you establish if you can scope out all your EMF issues in your workplace, if you can - record it, job done. If not, I'm afraid you may have an uphill struggle getting the information needed to establish exposure levels.  Good luck.

Pips

I think you can safely ignore the list of domestic and mundane appliances, which we should be safe to assume do not meet or exceed the accepted public safety levels for EMR exposure (referenced in HSE Guidance).

You shouldn't have any permanent workstations near battery charging areas and your ovens are presumably already shielded by metal cladding. It's the bigger, older and more unusual stuff that raises the questions I doubt very few people in this Country are qualified to answer.

Some useful stuff done by the Welding Institute, and there's a free to download research report out there on that particular work area.

If I were working in hgh power microwave environment (Radar, telecomms, etc) then I'd be looking for safe permit systems for dead working, exclusion zones, Narda probes, etc. There's a significant risk of being cooked from the inside!

Hi,

I would recommend going to the International Commission On Non‐Ionizing Radiation Protection as the HSE basically copied their limits and guidance. I recently carried out monitoring using our in-house RF subject matter expert and monitoring equipment (we manufacture RF equipment) so i can give pointers on possibly when to carry out a full assessment and how.

The best place to go if a full survey/assessment is required is the companies that manufactures/installs the equipment and not just wholesale.

For the most common electrical equipment in offices such as computers, iPhone, iPad, printers screens and so on you should expect readings of between 0.1v/m and 0.5v/m. Our in-house mobile phone antenna systems had readings of 0.2v/m to 1.7v/m. Also, with microwaves reading can be between 1.0v/m to 4.4v/m. I would civet the aforementioned that the sample was limited and calculated along with the frequency ranges of the equipment.

Originally Posted by: Ron Hunter

Fair to say that the figures you've quoted are several orders of magnitude below the action levels in the Schedule to the Regulations Mark?

I confess that these Regs have me somewhat baffled.

Ron Hunter - If I’m honest the regulations had me baffled at first. I was fortunate to have an in-house expert who took me through (Slowly) the regulations and the International Commission On Non‐Ionizing Radiation Protection's guidance.

We only have issues for our customer support engineers who operate near towers and large antennas.