E-A-Rfit™ Dual-Ear Validation System
How do you know if your workforce is protected?
Overview
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The success of your safety program depends on many factors and requires more than just offering hearing protection. To make sure they are getting the protection they need, you need to know the Personal Attenuation Rating (PAR) of every employee. The highest-NRR earplug or earmuff won’t provide the expected protection if it doesn’t fit right or isn’t used right. Once you know each employee’s number, you’ll be on the way to yours: 100% confidence in your hearing conservation program.
Hearing Protection Fit Testing
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The 3M™ E-A-Rfit™ Dual-Ear Validation System makes it easy to measure every employee's unique level of protection in hearing protection fit testing and takes the guesswork out of managing compliance in your hearing conservation program. Features:
- Tests both ears simultaneously in less than 5 seconds.
- Earmuff and Earplug testing capability
- Tests at 7 standard frequencies - 125Hz to 8000Hz
- Science-based, objective, quantitative testing
Safety Ratings
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Hearing Protection Devices (HPDs) are selected based on the noise exposure at the workplace. Other important considerations are comfort, fit, ability to communicate, compatibility with other personal protective equipment and the workplace environment. The following methods can be used to select the most appropriate HPD: Noise Reduction Rating (NRR), CSA Class, Octave Band or Fit Testing.
Noise Reduction Rating
The NRR is a single number method that describes the overall sound level reduction across frequencies (attenuation) of a HPD in decibels (dB) based on a laboratory test. Since the NRR is a laboratory test it is recognized that it may overestimate the protection achieved by users in their workplace settings. Therefore, it is recommended that the NRR be derated in order to better estimate workplace protection. The NRR derating scheme can be found in CSA Z94.2-14 Hearing Protection Devices Standards, Table 2: Effective rating calculations for the NRR.