Counterfeit Meters, Tools and PPE

Why this matters

Most counterfeit parts hurt a customer eventually. A counterfeit meter, respirator, hard hat or harness hurts the person holding it, at the exact moment it is asked to do its one job. A meter with a category rating printed on the case and nothing behind it can turn a transient on a service entrance into an arc in the tech's hands. A respirator that was never approved filters a fraction of what its box says. A harness with a stitched label and no testing behind it fails at the fall. These items are bought in small quantities, often by individual techs, often online, and that is exactly the buying pattern counterfeiters target. The shop that buys parts carefully and lets PPE come from anywhere has protected the customer and not the crew.

The rating is a design, not a label

The theme for this whole family: for protective equipment, what you are paying for is a design that has been tested by somebody other than the seller, and the label is only a claim that it was. A fake copies the claim.

Meters and their category ratings

A measurement category (CAT II, CAT III, CAT IV, each with a voltage) is defined in IEC 61010-1 and its U.S. counterpart UL 61010-1. It says how large a transient voltage spike the meter is built to survive at a given point in the electrical system: CAT IV at the service entrance and utility side, CAT III for distribution panels and fixed wiring, CAT II for plug-in loads. Surviving a spike depends on things you cannot see from the outside: spacing between internal conductors, input protection components, and fuses with an interrupting rating high enough to clear a fault without exploding.

A counterfeit or falsely rated meter can carry "CAT IV 600V" in the molding and have none of that inside. The tell is usually not the printing but the evidence behind it:

• No independent listing mark, or a mark that does not appear for that manufacturer and model in the testing laboratory's online certification directory. A category printed by the maker without a third-party listing is a claim nobody has checked.
• Fuses that are not high-interrupting-rating types of the kind the manual specifies, or a meter with no fuse at all on a current input that the manual says is fused (see related: Meter Fuses and the Cheap Replacement).
• Lightweight build, loose input jacks, test leads with no category marking of their own, or leads rated lower than the meter. A meter is only rated as high as its lowest-rated accessory.

OSHA's general-industry rule on test instruments, 29 CFR 1910.334(c), requires that instruments and their accessories be rated for the circuits and equipment they connect to and be visually inspected before use; NFPA 70E (current edition), Article 110, carries the same expectation into an electrical safety program. A meter that only claims a rating does not meet a requirement to be rated. How to check a specific meter is its own card (see related: How to Verify a Meter's Category Rating).

Respirators

In the United States, a respirator used under an employer's respiratory protection program has to be certified by NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, under 42 CFR Part 84; OSHA's respiratory protection standard requires NIOSH-certified respirators at 29 CFR 1910.134. An approved respirator carries a NIOSH approval number (for particulate filtering facepieces, it begins TC-84A), the word NIOSH, the manufacturer's name and the filter class, and the approval holder and model appear together on NIOSH's Certified Equipment List.

NIOSH publishes a running public list of respirators it has identified as counterfeit or as misrepresenting NIOSH approval. The recurring patterns it describes include:

• no approval number on the facepiece or headband, or an approval number that belongs to a different manufacturer or model;
• NIOSH misspelled, or the NIOSH name or logo used decoratively;
• claims of approval for children, which NIOSH does not grant;
• decorative fabric or add-ons, and ear loops on a product sold as an approved N95, where approved filtering facepieces generally use headbands.

The check takes two minutes: look up the approval number on the Certified Equipment List and confirm it names the same manufacturer and model printed on the respirator (see related: How to Verify a Respirator Is NIOSH Approved). A shop whose crew uses respirators does this under its written program, with the medical evaluation and fit testing the standard requires; a respirator with a valid approval and no fit test is still not a control.

Hard hats

OSHA requires head protection to meet ANSI/ISEA Z89.1, in the editions the standard lists: at 29 CFR 1910.135 for general industry and 29 CFR 1926.100 for construction. Z89.1 sorts helmets by type (Type I for top impact, Type II for top and lateral impact) and class (Class G general, Class E electrical, Class C conductive and not for electrical work). A genuine helmet carries a permanent marking inside the shell with the manufacturer, the date of manufacture, the standard, and the type and class.

A fake usually fails at the marking: none at all, a sticker instead of a molded or stamped mark, no date, or a class letter with no standard beside it. A Class E claim on an unmarked shell is the dangerous combination for an electrical crew, because the person wearing it believes it insulates.

Fall protection

Harnesses, lanyards, self-retracting lifelines and connectors are covered by OSHA's fall protection system criteria at 29 CFR 1926.502(d) for construction and 29 CFR 1910.140 for general industry. These set minimum strength and performance requirements, among them locking snaphooks and a limit on the arresting force a system may put on a body harness. The ANSI/ASSP Z359 family of consensus standards sets design, testing and labeling requirements on top; it binds the manufacturer that claims it and becomes enforceable on a jobsite when an employer, a general contractor or a contract adopts it.

Genuine equipment carries sewn-in or permanently attached labels with the manufacturer, the model, the date of manufacture, the standard, capacity and inspection guidance. Counterfeit and unlisted harnesses sold online commonly have no label, a printed tag that does not name a standard, connectors with no markings or rating, and webbing that feels thin next to the genuine article. A harness label is also what tells you whether a genuine unit is past its service life or has been involved in a fall, so a harness with no label cannot be inspected properly even if it happens to be real.

Insulated hand tools

Tools sold as insulated for live work at 1,000 volts are built and tested to ASTM F1505 or IEC 60900, and genuine ones carry the double-triangle symbol with the voltage rating and the standard. A counterfeit can be an ordinary tool with a colored dip on the handle. Insulated tools are not a substitute for de-energizing, but a crew that carries them for the work it does near energized parts is relying on a rating it cannot see.

Worked example: the tech's own kit

A residential electrical and HVAC shop of nine people runs its yearly PPE and tool review. Three techs have bought some of their own gear online. The review covers what they brought in:

• Meter A, marked "CAT IV 600V / CAT III 1000V". No listing mark on the case. The tech's receipt names a marketplace seller. Searching the laboratory directories finds no listing for that maker and model. Out of service.
• Meter B, genuine and listed, bought from an authorized distributor, but carrying a replacement fuse the tech bought cheaply after blowing the original. The fuse's interrupting rating, read off its body, is a small fraction of the one the meter's manual specifies. The meter stays; the fuse is replaced with the type the manual names.
• A box of 20 particulate respirators marked N95 with an approval number. On the Certified Equipment List that number belongs to a different manufacturer's model. The box is pulled, the shop reports it through NIOSH's counterfeit-respirator reporting contact, and the tech who used two of them on an attic insulation job last month is told what happened.
• A full-body harness, no sewn label, a paper tag naming no standard. Out of service, cut so it cannot be reused, and replaced from the shop's supplier.

Tally: of 4 items reviewed, 3 came out of service whole (Meter A, the respirators, the harness), and 1 stayed in service after a part change (Meter B). Three of the four problems traced to the same buying pattern: a marketplace seller, a low price, and no one but the tech involved in the decision.

The finding that changed the shop's policy was not any single item. It was that the shop had never told techs PPE and test instruments are bought through the shop. OSHA's PPE standard makes the employer responsible for the adequacy of employee-owned equipment, including its maintenance and sanitation, at 29 CFR 1910.132(b), so a tech's own respirator or harness used on the shop's work is the shop's problem whether or not the shop paid for it. The new rule: meters, leads, respirators, hard hats, harnesses and insulated tools come from the shop's approved suppliers, and anything a tech brings from home goes through the same check before its first use.

What changes the answer. A tech's personally bought tool that does no protective job, a nut driver or a tape measure, carries none of this, and the shop has no reason to police it. And a genuine, listed item bought from an unfamiliar but legitimate source passes the check the same as one from the usual supplier; the review is about evidence behind the rating, not about where a receipt came from.

What to do with an item that fails the check

• Remove it from service immediately and tell the user why.
• For PPE, make it unusable before disposal (cut a harness's webbing, break a respirator's straps) so it does not drift back into a truck.
• Report it: counterfeit respirators to NIOSH, misused listing marks to the laboratory whose mark appears, counterfeit branded products to the brand's manufacturer.
• Replace it before the next job that needs it, not after.
• If anyone used it on exposure-producing work, record which job and when, and route the question of any follow-up to the shop's program administrator or occupational health provider.

References

• 29 CFR 1910.132 (PPE general requirements, including employee-owned equipment), 1910.134 (respiratory protection), 1910.135 (head protection), 1910.140 (personal fall protection systems), 1910.334(c) (test instruments); 29 CFR 1926.100 and 1926.502(d) for construction.
• NIOSH Certified Equipment List and NIOSH's published list of counterfeit respirators and misrepresentation of NIOSH approval; 42 CFR Part 84.
• IEC 61010-1 and UL 61010-1 (measurement categories); NFPA 70E (current edition), Article 110.
• ANSI/ISEA Z89.1 (head protection); ANSI/ASSP Z359 family (fall protection); ASTM F1505 and IEC 60900 (insulated hand tools).
• See related: How to Verify a Meter's Category Rating