Safety

NFPA 70E: Annex Marks the Spot — Part 1

April 19, 2024

Don’t overlook the annexes of NFPA 70E, they are full of valuable safety information.

The main body of NFPA 70E consists of three chapters spanning 48 pages. There are six pages between the front cover and the start of Chapter 1. Following the end of Chapter 3, NFPA has 50 pages of annexes. With more than half of the text in NFPA 70E devoted to these annexes, we can surmise the writers of this standard believe that material to be helpful and important.

Who are these writers? They serve on two committees:

Correlating Committee on the National Electrical Code (NEC). This committee’s main job is to make sure these two standards don’t conflict.
Technical Committee on Electrical Safety in the Workplace. This committee’s main job is review and update NFPA 70E during the current cycle.

As with the NEC Code Making Panels, NFPA 70 committee members come from diverse interests, such as unions, manufacturers of electrical equipment, manufacturers that use electrical equipment but manufacture something else (e.g., automobiles), consultants, training providers, service firms, and government agencies. With this many viewpoints, you can imagine how tough it can be sometimes to reach consensus on this or that point — and it means these annexes aren’t just somebody’s oddball idea of something nice to add.

There are nineteen of these annexes, starting with Annex A and ending with Annex S. Annex B is “reserved” so you could say there are eighteen annexes.

Annex A is a compendium of informative publications. It runs three full pages, and you might think at first blush that’s a nodding-off-kind-of-thing to look at. However, the list is organized by the organization that wrote (or has rights to) the publication:

A.2. NFPA publications.

A.3. Other publications

A.3.1. ANSI

A.3.2. ASTM

A.3.3. ICRP

A.3.4. IEC

A.3.5. IEEE

A.3.6. ISEA

A3.7. ISO

A.3.8. NIOSH

A.3.9. UL

A.3.10. U.S. Government publications.

After that is A.3.11, which presents a list of six publications by independent authors and two technical papers (each presented at a different IEEE conference).

This resource is worth spending the time to peruse. You may find something that will provide information of importance to safety in your work. For example, if your company uses rubber insulating gloves, blankets, or covers, you will probably want to obtain the three ASTM standards that cover the use of these.

Since there’s nothing to cover in Annex B, Part 2 of this series will cover Annex C.

About the Author

Mark Lamendola

Mark is an expert in maintenance management, having racked up an impressive track record during his time working in the field. He also has extensive knowledge of, and practical expertise with, the National Electrical Code (NEC). Through his consulting business, he provides articles and training materials on electrical topics, specializing in making difficult subjects easy to understand and focusing on the practical aspects of electrical work.

Prior to starting his own business, Mark served as the Technical Editor on EC&M for six years, worked three years in nuclear maintenance, six years as a contract project engineer/project manager, three years as a systems engineer, and three years in plant maintenance management.

Mark earned an AAS degree from Rock Valley College, a BSEET from Columbia Pacific University, and an MBA from Lake Erie College. He’s also completed several related certifications over the years and even was formerly licensed as a Master Electrician. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and past Chairman of the Kansas City Chapters of both the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society. Mark also served as the program director for, a board member of, and webmaster of, the Midwest Chapter of the 7x24 Exchange. He has also held memberships with the following organizations: NETA, NFPA, International Association of Webmasters, and Institute of Certified Professional Managers.