How to Set Up and Maintain an Eyewash That Meets the Standard

Why this matters

An eye splashed with pool acid, battery electrolyte or a caustic drain opener starts losing tissue in seconds, and the damage is decided by how fast clean water reaches it and how long it keeps coming. The bottle of saline in the glovebox runs dry in well under a minute. The unit in the corner of the shop that nobody has opened since it was installed may run rusty, ice cold, or not at all. An eyewash only works if it was placed, sized and maintained for the moment somebody is half-blind and walking toward it with their hands over their face.

This article covers setting one up in a shop and deciding what a truck carries. How to actually flush an injured eye is its own card. See related: How to Flush an Eye After a Chemical Splash.

The rule and the standard behind it

The legal duty is federal and short. 29 CFR 1910.151(c) (general industry) and 29 CFR 1926.50(g) (construction) both say that where the eyes or body of any person may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials, suitable facilities for quick drenching or flushing shall be provided within the work area for immediate emergency use. That is the whole text. It does not say how far, how much, or how warm.

The detail comes from a consensus standard. ANSI/ISEA Z358.1, Emergency Eyewash and Shower Equipment, is not law on its own. OSHA does not incorporate it into 1910.151, but it points to it in letters of interpretation as the measure of "suitable," and an inspector, an insurer or a plaintiff's expert will read your setup against it. The edition current at this writing is the 2014 edition, reaffirmed in 2020; check the edition printed on any unit you buy. States running their own OSHA plans (California, Washington, Michigan and others) can and do go further, so check your state plan.

The trigger is a corrosive, not a chemical. The duty attaches where a material that can injure the eye or skin on contact is handled: acids and alkalis, many pool chemicals, battery electrolyte, some coil cleaners, concentrated drain openers, some concrete and masonry products. The Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for each product answers it. Section 2 gives the hazard class (look for "causes serious eye damage" or skin corrosion), and Section 4 gives the first-aid flush instruction, which for some alkalis is longer than 15 minutes.

The Z358.1 numbers you will build to:

Step 1: Inventory the corrosives and where they are opened

List every product the shop stores or uses that the SDS marks as an eye or skin corrosive, and next to each, write the place where its container is opened, poured, mixed or charged. The reason: the standard measures from the hazard, and the hazard is where the liquid is exposed, not where the sealed case sits on a pallet. A shop that puts one unit by the restroom because the plumbing is there, while acid is diluted at a bench forty feet and two doors away, has an eyewash that meets nothing.

What breaks if you skip it: you size and place for the products you remember. The one you forgot is usually the battery charging station or the coil cleaner a tech mixes in a pump sprayer.

Step 2: Place the unit by time, not by plumbing

Walk the path from each opening point to the proposed location at a normal pace with your eyes closed and a coworker spotting you, and time it. Ten seconds at a normal walking pace works out to roughly 55 feet in the standard's appendix guidance, but the stopwatch beats the tape: a person who cannot see takes longer, and every turn, door and box on the floor adds time.

Mount it so the nozzles sit 33 to 53 inches above the floor and at least 6 inches from the nearest wall or obstruction, with the area around it kept clear. Post a highly visible sign at the unit and light the area. Where a strong acid or caustic is handled, the standard's appendix advises putting the unit right next to the hazard, so for a pool chemical mixing bench, put it at the bench.

What breaks if you skip it: a unit that takes 20 seconds to reach turns a recoverable splash into a corneal burn, and a unit behind a door that someone locks at night does not exist for the person working late.

Step 3: Size the flow for 15 minutes

An eyewash must deliver at least 0.4 gallons per minute for 15 minutes, which is 0.4 times 15, or 6 gallons, as a minimum delivered volume. An eye/face wash must deliver 3.0 gallons per minute for 15 minutes, which is 45 gallons. That arithmetic decides what you can buy.

• Plumbed unit: connected to the water supply, so volume is not the limit. Flow at the nozzles is, and it depends on the supply pressure the manufacturer specifies. Verify flow at installation with the unit's own test gauge or by timing a fill of a marked container.
• Self-contained gravity unit: a tank on the wall. It must hold enough to deliver the full 15 minutes, so a 0.4 gpm unit carries comfortably more than 6 gallons. A 45-gallon eye/face self-contained unit is rare and heavy, which is why most shops that need eye/face flow plumb it.

What breaks if you skip it: a unit that delivers 4 minutes of flow is worse than it looks, because the victim stops flushing when the water stops, not when the eye is clean.

Step 4: Control the temperature

Tepid means 60 to 100 F. Below about 60 F the victim cannot stand the water long enough to finish the flush; above 100 F, warm water can speed some chemical reactions with the eye. For a plumbed unit inside a heated shop, cold supply water is usually within range; in an unheated warehouse in January it often is not, and the fix is a thermostatic mixing valve made for emergency fixtures. For a self-contained unit, the room temperature is the fluid temperature.

What breaks if you skip it: the person flushes for 90 seconds in 45 F water, decides that is enough, and walks away with a burn still developing.

Step 5: Set the weekly and annual routine

Weekly, for plumbed units: activate the unit long enough to confirm water flows from both nozzles and to clear the stagnant water in the line. The standard requires the activation; a common shop default is to run it about three minutes, until the water runs clear and at supply temperature. Check that the caps pop off, the bowl drains and nothing has been stacked in front of it.

Self-contained units: follow the manufacturer's schedule for changing or treating the fluid. Sealed cartridges are typically rated for a stated shelf life; tanks filled with tap water and a preservative additive need far more frequent changes. Write the change-by date on the unit.

Annually, for every unit: inspect against the full standard: flow, height, temperature, travel time, signage, valve action.

Hang a tag at the unit and initial it, because the record is what proves the weekly check happened:

EYEWASH WEEKLY CHECK - UNIT 2, CHEM BENCH
Type: plumbed, eyewash only, 0.4 gpm min
Week of   Ran   Clear  Caps  Path   Init
10/06     3m    yes    ok    clear  RT
10/13     3m    yes    ok    BOXES  RT  moved
10/20     3m    yes    ok    clear  JS
Annual: 03/14 flow 0.5 gpm, 72 F, 3 s walk
Fluid temp target: 60 to 100 F

What breaks if you skip it: the first activation in a year is the emergency, and it delivers brown water or a stuck valve.

Step 6: Decide what the truck carries

This is where most shops are unsure, and the answer depends on what the tech does at the job. The duty in 1910.151(c) follows the work area, and for a field tech the work area is the customer's equipment room, pool pad or roof.

• Techs who handle corrosives as a routine part of the job (pool service with acid and chlorine, battery replacement, acid-based coil cleaning, chemical descaling) need suitable flushing within about 10 seconds of where they pour or charge. A self-contained portable unit set beside the work, or a vehicle-mounted unit with the vehicle parked close, are the options shops use.
• Temperature is the truck's real problem. A closed van in summer runs well above 100 F and freezes in winter. A truck-mounted tank needs to be protected or carried into the conditioned space when the work starts.
• Personal wash bottles are supplemental. Z358.1 treats them as a way to start flushing in the first seconds while you get to a real unit. They do not substitute for one.
• A garden hose is not a compliant unit. Pressure, flow pattern and temperature are all wrong, though it beats nothing if it is the only water at the scene.

Where the work genuinely does not involve corrosives (a tech carrying a sealed jug of cleaner they never open), a wash bottle in the kit is reasonable and an eyewash is not required by the rule's trigger.

A worked setup: nine-person pool and spa shop

The shop stores muriatic acid, liquid chlorine, a granular pH increaser and a filter cleaner. The SDS marks the acid, the chlorine and the filter cleaner as eye corrosives; the pH increaser is an irritant only.

Shop, Step 1. Acid and chlorine are decanted into smaller jugs at a bench at the back wall. The filter cleaner is mixed in a sink in the service bay. Two opening points.

Shop, Step 2. The existing plumbed unit is by the restroom. Walked blindfolded from the bench, it took 17 seconds through one door; from the sink, 9 seconds. The bench fails, the sink passes. The owner adds a second plumbed eyewash at the bench, mounted with nozzles 40 inches above the floor; the walk from the decanting spot now takes 3 seconds.

Shop, Steps 3 and 4. Both units are rated 0.4 gpm or better on supply pressure confirmed at 50 psi. The bay is heated, and the weekly run shows 72 F water.

Trucks, Step 6. Techs add acid and chlorine at every stop. Each truck gets a self-contained portable unit rated to deliver 0.4 gpm for 15 minutes. The van cargo area read 118 F on a July afternoon, outside the 60 to 100 F band, so the rule becomes: the unit rides in the cab with air conditioning and is set on the pool deck within a few steps of the chemical feeder before any container is opened. Each tech also carries a wash bottle on the belt for the first seconds.

What would change this answer: if the shop moved to sealed chemical feeder cartridges that techs never open, the truck units could become wash bottles only. If the state plan is stricter, as some are on vehicle units, the state rule controls.

Where to stop and ask

If you cannot decide whether a truck arrangement is "suitable," that is a judgment OSHA makes, not an article. OSHA's On-Site Consultation Program is free and confidential for small businesses, separate from enforcement, and will walk your shop and trucks. Bring the SDS list from Step 1, your timed walks, and the truck temperature readings.

How to verify you got this right

Pick one corrosive at random from the inventory. Stand where it is opened, close your eyes, and walk to the nearest unit while a coworker times you: under 10 seconds. Activate it: on in one motion, stays on without a hand, both streams meet. Check the tag: a weekly initial in each of the last four weeks or, for a self-contained unit, a fluid change-by date in the future. Do the same on one truck at a real stop.

References

• 29 CFR 1910.151(c) and 29 CFR 1926.50(g), OSHA medical services and first aid, quick drenching or flushing facilities
• ANSI/ISEA Z358.1, Emergency Eyewash and Shower Equipment (2014 edition, reaffirmed 2020), and OSHA letters of interpretation referencing it
• OSHA On-Site Consultation Program for small businesses
• See related: How to Flush an Eye After a Chemical Splash
• See related: What OSHA Requires for First Aid at a Small Shop