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TJ-1 11.17.17
Hazardous Location Lighting
This is the first in a series of Technical Journals that covers LED Lighting Fixtures for Hazardous Locations. Often just called "Haz-Loc" lighting, these LED fixtures can seem very complicated, with rules and regulations that seem complex and confusing. This series of Journals will attempt to make HazLoc LED Lighting more understandable.

Let's start out with the history of the key word, "Hazardous." This is from the word, Hazard.

Hazard:    /'hazərd/  noun
  • A danger or risk. 
  • A potential source of danger.

Origin: At first, hazard was a game of chance played with dice. After a few centuries, the word "hazardous" had changed from the game, and the chance taken on the outcome of a throw of the dice, to the risk in any venture or activity. In the 16th century the meaning of the word emerged as "danger", "risk" or "peril."
Hazardous Location Lighting fixtures are classified by the National Electric Code (NEC), whose history goes back to 1897. This is a Life Safety Code, and it is an "American Standard," that means that this Code is officially recognized as representing standard American practice. There are other Codes adopted outside of the USA, but the NEC Code applies to all lighting installed in the USA, and it has been adopted by cities and governmental bodies in an effort to standardize their enforcement of safety standards for lighting.

When in doubt about the rules, regulations and classifications for HazLoc Lighting, the NEC Code is the Bible. Anyone who has anything to do with the electrical industry and lighting fixtures is familiar with the slogan: "Let the Code Decide."
So, what are the hazards covered by the NEC?
( Covered in upcoming Journal #2 - stay tuned. )
Bill Nagengast, President and Lighting Engineer, Solas Ray Lighting, holds over 20 patents in the lighting industry.