Best Power Tool And Loud Machine Hearing Protection

When working with power tools, safety has to always be a primary consideration. Everyone wears safety goggles to protect their eyes, but fewer people wear ear muffs or plugs to protect their hearing.

Power tools make loud sounds, which will damage your hearing over time. This damage is not repairable. All of this can easily be avoided by wearing the best ear protection for using power tools. They are inexpensive and will last you for years!

This article will give you all the information that you need to help you choose the right pair of ear defenders for when working with power tools and making some brilliant suggestions.

Noise Reduction Rating (NNR) – Measuring Ear Protection When Using Power Tools

When you wear headphones and earplugs, they will block off some external sounds. But how do you know if they are blocking enough of these sounds, and how do you know if you actually need them at all?

Well, power tools are going to be loud. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of America recommend that hearing protection is worn when working in an environment of over 85dB. (See the infographic below for some idea of how loud every day’s sounds are). You can also get free sound meters for your smartphone. These will give you a reasonable idea of how loud noises are if you want to be a little more accurate.

As a rule of thumb, when talking to someone who is at a distance of arm’s length, you should not have to raise your voice. If you need to raise your voice, then you should wear ear protection. Almost all power tools are way over 85dB in volume. So get yourself some suitable ear protectors if you are going to be using power tools.

Earmuffs and plugs have an NNR rating (Noise Reduction Rating). This measurement tells you how much a sound is reduced when wearing the ear protection. One point of NNR equals 1 decibel (dB) reduction in sound.

So if you are wearing a set of 25NNR ear muffs in a very noisy environment of 100 decibels, your ears will pick up (100-25) 75dB of that sound, which is well within the safe limits.

Proper ear protection will be between 15-30 on the NNR scale.

Features To Look For In Ear Protectors

When you are buying ear protection, the key criteria usually is how much sound they block out. But there are a lot of other nice to have features to consider. Some of them are listed below.

• High NNR – This is what the ear protection is for. It needs to be suitable for power tools so should have an NNR of 20+
• Comfortable – You may have to wear the ear muffs for long periods of time, so you want the earmuffs to be padded and also the headband.
• Hardhat – If the earmuff has to be used with a hardhat, the headband must be able to go under, or behind the hard hat.
• Easy height adjustment – allowing the muffs to be placed at the correct height for the size of your head, giving the maximum hearing protection
• Speakers – Headphones with speaker can will enable you to listen to the radio, music or phone calls when you are wearing them
• Microphone – with an integrated microphone, you can issue voice commands to the unit. For playing music or answering phone calls.
• Bluetooth – Allows you to pair the headset with your smartphone. Doing this allows you to stream music, hear alarms and make phone calls without having to touch your cell phone
• Ariel – Allows you to get better radio reception

But again, the feature that is most important is the amount of sound that is blocked

Typical Power Tool Volumes

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) states that hearing protection should be used if the volume is above 85dB for a period. Below are some power tools and their average volumes. As you can see, they are all above the safe limit for hearing. Having hearing protection with an NNR of 25+ would bring these to safe levels.

• Muffler 90dB
• Screw Driver 91dB
• Orbital Sander 92dB
• Drill 93dB
• Jig Saw 98dB
• Grinder 100dB
• Miter Saw 104dB
• Hammer Drill 105dB
• Circular Saw 106dB
• Reciprocating Saw 105dB
• Impact Wrench 107dB

How Power Tools Damage Hearing

Your hearing ears are very delicate sense. Basically, it works by vibrations in the air hitting your eardrum. This vibrates tiny hairs in the inner ear, and the brain senses these vibrations and converts them into what you perceive as sound.

When you are a child, your hearing is excellent, everything is in good working order. But as we are exposed to loud noises (and some other external factors like blows to the head), some of these thousands of hairs can break off. Each one represents a tiny amount of damage that is done to your hearing.

Each individual breakage that you get will be unnoticeable to you, but as more and more damage is done, it becomes noticeable – and this damage is accumulative. That’s why your kids can hear the TV fine, but your older relatives have hearing problems. All the damage that has occurred to their ears through their life has built until they have trouble hearing.

Anyone exposed to loud noise more often will have worse hearing, for example, people who shoot, and of course people who use noisy power tools.

You notice that other than hearing aids, there is not much that can be done for people with damaged hearing. If you have it, it can also reduce your job opportunities. Some jobs do not allow the hard of hearing for safety reasons. Also, if you interview two job applicants who were very similar, but one of them was hard of hearing, which one would you hire?

Hearing need not be a problem, wearing ear protection when using power tools is easy and inexpensive, so save your hearing now!

What are the four basic types of hearing protection?

1. Premolded (preformed) earplugs;
2. Custom-molded earplugs;
3. Rolldown foam
4. Push-to-fit

For hearing protection for power tools & loud machinery we would recommend the premolded (preformed) earplugs or the custom molded earplugs. For general work use either of these will suffice. For jobs requiring greater than 85 decibels we recommend using a custom molded earplug. However, any earplugs will do.

How do I choose hearing protection?

The selection of hearing protection is based on a number of factors. These factors include the type of work being performed, noise level, duration of use or exposure, and cost. The most important factor in choosing hearing protection is sound levels.

Sound level can be measured using a device called a sound level meter (SLM). SLMs can be found at many industrial supply stores, however they are very expensive. A cheaper alternative is the use of a sound level meter app for your mobile phone, or a handheld electronic noise meter (ENM).

These are much cheaper and you can purchase them at most hardware stores.

How does sound affect my ears?

Sound affects your ears in two different ways, one is temporary and the other is permanent. Temporary hearing loss occurs when continuous loud sounds affect your hearing for a limited period of time.

Temporary hearing loss usually lasts from one to three hours after you are removed from the loud noise, but could last as long as 24 hours.

Permanent hearing loss is caused by exposure to excessive noise over a longer period of time, usually several weeks or months.

Recommended Earmuffs 3M WorkTunes With Bluetooth Technology

My recommended choice for ear protection when using power tools is the 3M WorkTunes With Bluetooth Technology. These ear muffs cover just about everything mentioned and are a very reasonable price.

• Noise Reduction Rating 24 NNR 24 to help protect your hearing
• Integrated Microphone Make and take phone calls without having to re-move the headset.
• Hi-Fi Sound 40 mm high-fidelity speakers for premium sound quality
• Bluetooth Technology stream music from mobile phones or other Blue-tooth devices.

Conclusions - Best Ear Protection For Power Tools

In conclusion, the “power” in power tools causes these devices to make a lot of noise. This noise WILL damage your hearing over time as you are exposed to more loud noises.

Your hearing is very delicate and cannot really be repaired once it has been damaged, so it is worth looking after. You do not want to be like me in a few years and be continually raising the TV volume because the talking is too quiet, and you can’t hear it, then lowering the volume again because the music is too loud.

Wearing ear protection when using power tools is easy! Anyone can do it. Also, ear protection is not expensive and will last you many years.

So what is your excuse for not using it? Get some ear protection for when you are using your power tools now!

Recommended Products – Best Ear Protection For Power Tools

So now you know a little more about ear protection and power tools. Below is my list of recommended ear and some eye protection that you should be using.

The choices should suit everyone’s budget, and the type of project you are working on. For most handheld power tools, simple earmuffs and eye goggles will suffice. However, sometimes when using powerful tools you may need ear protection with a hard hat and full faceguard.

If you choose one of the recommendation below, you will get a long-lasting piece of safety equipment

Please Note: Just because an ear defender is marked, for example, "Gunshot" - it will still cover other things, like "explosions"