Not looking for a respirator that HAS facial hair, but I am now sporting a beard and I am in need of replacing my respirator/mask for explorations.

I know seal is a bit thing with respirators, so I'm hesitant to just get the same mask.

Any men (or women, I don't judge haha ) who have facial hair have mask recommendations?

Thanks!

*and for the record, my beard isn't a grizzly adams style beard, just a 3-4 weeks unshaven style look.

Yup yup, good question. I had a similar question in this thread here at one point I believe… http://www.uer.ca/...=1&threadid=108617

But I think it's always a good thing to have this kind of topic floating around, so I will let some experts/ "experts" fill you in.

From my understanding, the longer a beard gets, the less of a seal you will get. A little stubble should be fine, but once it is a beard, I think there is not much of a seal at all. Perform the test:

http://www.gempler...h/respfitcheck.htm

I just shave. That usually takes care of any problems for me.

One of the reasons the military makes you shave is for the seal on a gas mask, stubble allows for minute holes that foreign matter can enter in through.

Being in the construction industry and having an oversight role in project safety I have a couple comments. You simply aren't going to get as good of a seal when you're not clean shaven. During yearly OSHA respirator fit testing most guys will shave in order to pass the test. Keep in mind, on the extreme end, these guys will be doing things like abating lead paint for 10 hours at a stretch, or abating asbestos all day long. Most of my guys are getting casual exposure only, but still have to go through the same test. These are MUCH higher risk situations that you will ever likely experience during an explore. For them, it's a no brainer to shave, so that they can pass the test and not have to do it over again. That means that stubble makes the mask leak a little.

A simple test to perform on yourself is to cover the filters with your hands then try to breathe in. If air is getting in somewhere else, you should be able to tell, otherwise the mask will suction to your face.

A bigger concern for me is after the explore when you take off your respirator. Guess what is all over your clothes and boots? Now you aren't wearing the respirator and moving around, driving your car home etc and you are shaking all this stuff loose and breathing it in. If you are in a really bad place, disrobe prior to taking off the respirator, put your clothes in a trash bag and seal it and immediately wash them when you get home. This behavior, in the context of the http://www.uer.ca/...=1&threadid=114273 the "Dangerous" Parts of Town thread should be a pretty funny scene. I'm sure no one will fuck with you in the ghetto when you are wearing a respirator and taking your clothes off in front of the site.

So what do I do personally? I rarely wear a respirator unless it's a known bad location that has un-encapsulated asbestos or significant solvents present. I've really only worn them properly in two places, an old hospital with the floor covered in massive amounts of potential asbestos pipe lagging, and a Titan 1 missile silo.

Bottom line: Sounds like you are regularly wearing one which is ten times better than not wearing one, even if it's a little leaky. For the really bad sites, catch a shave first.
-free

Thanks for the tips and insight

as someone that works at the back end of a paper mill, one of the requirements we have for my job is to be clean shaven as an SCBA or gas mask doesn't seal properly. When dealing with chlorine dioxide or hydrogen sulfide, this could mean the difference between life and death. Now, with that said, because everyone bitches so much about not being able to have beards, we are going with hoods instead of masks which are a little stranger.

It's not going to work at all; don't even bother wearing one.

I thought a beard was a replacement for a respirator

When I ran in a volunteer fire company you were not allowed to have more than 2 days growth because you can't get a seal with an SCBA.

However...the some of the older guys did have beards and used to use Vaseline in their beards when there was a fire to get a seal.

Shave or use Vaseline where the mask seals.

Posted by Soldat When I ran in a volunteer fire company you were not allowed to have more than 2 days growth because you can't get a seal with an SCBA. However...the some of the older guys did have beards and used to use Vaseline in their beards when there was a fire to get a seal.

i've only had to wear and SCBA a couple of times at work... you have to admit, the first couple times you don it, it's a weird feeling. Have you ever ran yours out of air by mistake?

Posted by Samurai i've only had to wear and SCBA a couple of times at work... you have to admit, the first couple times you don it, it's a weird feeling. Have you ever ran yours out of air by mistake?

Glad I'm not the only person who noticed that! We've just been given new sets, but the old ones were somewhat like the SCUBA regulators I've used, they feel as if they're forcing air into you, but only on demand. That said, the moment you've got to think about not getting lost, or not getting yelled at by instructors, you hardly notice it's there!

We got to run down our 200 bar cylinders during training to get an idea of what it's like if the shit really hits the fan, they call it "sucking rust". Apparently the ancient super-heavy steel cylinders used to let all sorts of crap into the air when you ran low. Kinda feels like I'd imagine Asthma to feel, you can get air, but very slowly, and after 10 minutes of careful breathing it becomes too much and you rip your mask off! Good fun in clean air seeing who can get by on minimal Oxygen, but I'd be bricking it if I were trapped in an "irrespirable atmosphere" (us Brits either seem to have a Three Letter Acronym or stupid word for everything!).

Posted by Samurai i've only had to wear and SCBA a couple of times at work... you have to admit, the first couple times you don it, it's a weird feeling. Have you ever ran yours out of air by mistake?

They are sorta weird at first. I ran one down a few times for training. Its just no fun at all.

Posted by Soldat They are sorta weird at first. I ran one down a few times for training. Its just no fun at all.

especially when you're standing in the green hell, an environment of chlorine dioxide gas.
(been there, done that when I unlocked a ClO2 heat exchanger and left one of the drains open by mistake... In less than 5 seconds, I filled the U-drain in the floor with probably 300 gallons of fresh, explosive, wonderful chlorine dioxide right out of the reactor.) Facepalm.