The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in July of 2007 revised Standard 1851 with major implications as to how our machines process turnout gear. Essentially, the revised standard published that firefighter turnout gear receive final extracts at no more than 100 G-forces and that they be laundered in water temperatures not exceeding 105 degrees.

The reason behind these changes is that turnout gear manufacturers started to see waterproof moisture barriers microbursting as a result of overly-high extracts. Some gear components were also susceptible to damage while being washed in high temperature water.

Existing Gear Guardian customers with E-P Plus microprocessors have control over water temperatures and extract rates, allowing the user to easily make these formula changes in the field. Turnout gear formulas in E-P Plus should be set no higher than E1, whereas formulas for towels and personal clothing can continue to use higher extracts.

Customers with E-P Express microprocessors will need to have water coming in from the heater at 105-degrees, or the user can program split or cold temps for turnout gear baths. Existing E-P Express models in the field have a 110 G-force final extract which can be lowered via inverter adjustment. The inverter constant that needs to be changed is n026 and the number will have to be re-set to 138 in order for these older T5X models to comply with the change to NFPA 1851.

Last year in our factory, we started changing inverter settings on E-P Express models ordered as a Gear Guardian unit to follow the NFPA standard. Standard T5X models that are not ordered as Gear Guardian units are still shipped with 110-G-force extracts.

By the way, the MWR18X4 model with E-P Express is ideally-suited for the Gear Guardian market by offering a final extract of 90 Gs and featuring our exclusive Gear Guardian formulas.