Booth standards to be revised

The standards concerning the manufacture, installation and use of spray paint booths is to be revised after a meeting of the EL-014-08 committee in Christchurch, New Zealand in December.
Tom Godfrey of Standards Australia said the committee had discussed proposed revisions to AS/NZS 4114.1 and .2 and had decided to look at among other things, heat exchanges and ventilation profiles. A draft of the new standard is expected to be released by the end of this year for public consultation.
A new appendix to the standard, concerning auxiliary areas, or paint mix rooms, will be added to AS/NZS 4114.1 (which concerns the construction of the equipment), a draft of which will be released this year.
Garry House from Air New Zealand was on the overall EL 014 committee and said two working parties have been set up to look into the issue of booth certification and safety issues. House said a proposal that AS/NZS 4114 include provisions for a designated spray area, was raised at the meeting. If this proposal is agreed upon, (and the next meeting is in Sydney this March) all the standards under 4114 will not only apply to spray booths but to a designated spray area around the booth.
House said he believes the lack of certification of booths by many Australasian manufacturers was an issue that needed serious attention. "I believe that certification should be mandated and enforced by regulatory authorities such as WorkCover and other inspection agencies," he said.
Air New Zealand uses spray booths for its fleet of aircraft and House believes New Zealand is being used as a "dumping ground" for non-certified booths from Australia. He said: "People buy these booths in good faith believing them to be certified, and then get caught out when they are found to be uncertified. The average Joe Bloggs doesn't have the skills or knowledge to determine whether a booth complies to the standards or not."
Some in the industry fear that if regulators get heavy on the rules however, it will force many operators out of their shops and back into their backyards -- increasing, not decreasing the dangers inherent in spray painting. This may be a smokescreen however, as the key issue is surely that the booth industry become fully certified and regulated, allowing greater control and transparency for regulators and operators.

:Australia, Europe conduct joint crash tests
Australian-built small cars are still lagging behind European imports in terms of safety, but standards here have improved. Under tests conducted to joint procedures, the best Australian results came from the Hyundai Accent, Daihatsu Sirion and Mazda 323 (also sold as the Ford Laser), all with a rating of three stars out of four. European imports with four stars however, included the Audi A3, Holden Astra, Mercedes A140, Peugeot 206, Toyota Echo and VW Golf.
Under the independent Australian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), vehicles are crash-tested to the same standard as the European NCAP.
"The Australian and European test procedures involve an offset frontal test, a side impact test and pedestrian test," said RACV chief engineer Michael Case. "In line with European procedures, ANCAP test results are reported using a scale of one to four stars . . .additionally, aligning Australian and European tests allows ANCAP to provide crashworthiness information on a greater number of vehicles available on the Australian market. The addition of the European crash test procedures is expected to encourage vehicle manufacturers to achieve even better levels of occupant protection," he added.
The Nissan Pulsar and Daewoo Nubira rated two stars from ANCAP and the Daewoo Lanos one star. The European NCAP gave the Toyota Corolla and the Peugeot 306 three stars.


Workskills
Autobody Repairer will be one of the competition trade categories at Workskills Australia 2001, due to be held in Adelaide 14-16 March. Staged bi-annually in different capital cities around the country, the competition is a culmination of almost two years of preparation at a regional level.