4 Tips for Washing Your FR Outerwear
It’s that time of year again when many of us need to wear jackets to stay warm. One of the biggest risks in the FR industry is outerwear soiled with flammable contaminants, such as oil or grease. If exposed to flame or electric arc, flammable soil could ignite and continue to burn – even though the garment itself won’t burn.
Fall is a great time to wash all of your outerwear to ensure you are safe all winter long! Here are four tips for washing your FR outerwear at home:
- Don’t over-fill the washer, allowing your clothing room to agitate.
- We recommend using Liquid Tide (top-loading machines) and Liquid Tide HE (front-loading machines) to wash your FRC.
- For heavily soiled garments, wash FR clothing in the hottest temperature allowed on the care label (generally warm setting) to remove dirt. It is even more important to wash garments that are soiled with flammable substances.
- If you can’t get set-in substances out through normal laundering, try dry cleaning!
For more information on minimizing shrinkage of your FR clothing and the useful wear life of FRC, check out our earlier blog post here.
Did you know that 90% of electric utilities in the U.S. utilize home laundering for their FR clothing needs? In fact, since OSHA first enacted regulations related to FR clothing for electric distribution, there has never been a product failure or OSHA citation related to home laundering of FRC. On top of that, OSHA has never issued a requirement for industrial laundering of FR clothing.
The fact remains that home laundering is a safe, cost-effective alternative to industrial laundering and can help preserve the useful life and protective qualities of FR clothing, but above all, follow your company’s safety policy. Tyndale guarantees 100% of the products we sell to retain their flame resistance for the useful life of the garment. Review the laundering instruction card included in every shipment from Tyndale for more best practices; consider keeping a copy near your washing machine for quick reference!
Interested in learning more about washing your FR outerwear at home? Check out ASTM F2757, Standard Guide for Home Laundering Care and Maintenance of Flame, Thermal and Arc Resistant Clothing.
