High Pressure enough to cause injury?

[rivaitan]

Hi all,

I have been posed a safety question from a local authority. While chances are very low that the high pressure jets will ever strike a person (machine starts up while servicing, or customer accidentally winds down his windows when a high pressure rinse is in progress etc), I do understand from Wash World that nozzle pressures can go up to 1100 psi. This sounds pretty high to me.

Has anyone ever experienced an injury arising from being struck by the high water pressure?

How severe was the injury?

Best,
Rivai

 

[Stuart]

I have had a customer in the SS bay put her hand within 2" of nozzle and did some damage. I have washed my hands in front of the wand without damage unless I was careless.
On an automatic, unless they are turbo nozzles, the spray would not be close enough to do skin damage. It would be the chemicals if the customer ingested some or got into their eyes. And mostly scare them.
There should be safety procedures in place to prevent the wash from starting while doing a service on the equipment, lockout/tagout at the power source for example..

 

[rivaitan]

Thank you Stuart.

It is surprising to me that nozzle pressures for self serve wands are higher. A quick internet search seems to verify this, i've seen wand pressures anywhere between 1400 to 2000 psi! This makes me feel a lot more comfortable.

I would appreciate if anyone else has a view or experience on this also.

 

[mrfixit]

Go put your hand or arm slowly in front of them at 6"-12". No blood.

Proof.

Directly in the eye may be different but no ones going to look into the barrel of a nozzle.

 

[PEI]

As long as it doesn't hit the eye, you and your customers will be fine if they get sprayed by the high pressure.

 

[Jeff_L]

A customer could get hurt with a knife or fork at a restaurant too. What precautions do they take?