Hazardous Area Ex Installation and Inspection Compliance

Hazardous area classification decides where the zones are. This is the separate and often neglected question of whether the equipment standing in those zones is actually suitable for them, correctly installed and still compliant. Our work runs the IEC 60079 14 installation verification and the IEC 60079 17 inspection regime across the classified areas, checking equipment group, temperature class and protection concept against the zone and the material present, verifying that certification is valid and that any conditions of certification have been met, and examining the installation detail that the protection concept depends on. For flameproof equipment that means flame path condition, gap and fastener integrity. For increased safety it means terminal condition and ingress protection. For intrinsic safety it means the loop calculation, the barrier and the segregation of the wiring. The findings that recur are the ones that come from ordinary maintenance rather than from design: a cable gland substituted for a non certified equivalent, a flameproof cover refitted with the wrong bolts, an IS loop extended without recalculating.