UL listing

[Axtman]

It is my understanding that all commercially produced electrical goods sold in the U.S. must be UL listed. Is this true?

BTW, the question came up at work about dealing with heavy shop tools (chop saws, lathes, drill presses, break formers, milling machines, etc.)

[jrfrond]

Not necessarily, but if you are selling a product that is not UL-approved, meaning that it passes a battery of safety tests, and someone gets injured or killed as a result, you are solely liable for the damages. I'd like to add that UL approval isn't cheap, and you need to submit a complete, sacrificial unit as well as a complete kit of parts for testing. It is not a cut-and-try procedure, and can take many months to process. CSA and CE certification is even more stringent. Nowadays, there are also RoHs specs to deal with.

[Enzo]

Go to the store and look at consumer products. See how many do and do not have the UL sticker.

No, it is not a requirement.

[R.G.]

It is my understanding that all commercially produced electrical goods sold in the U.S. must be UL listed. Is this true?

No. But it is a common misconception.

"Underwriters" are people who put up the money to fund an insurance venture. Way back when, the insurance companies decided to run a lab to see what things were dangerous and what wasn't so they would know how to price insurance.

At least in the USA. In the USA, there is no federal law requiring any safety certification at all. This is dramatically different in other places, notably Europe and some other countries, where certification of passing certain safety standards was at one time mandatory, and inspection by the government run safety testing lab was sufficient proof that your product was not dangerous, and therefore was preemptive defense against lawsuits.

However, in the USA, there is no preemptive defense against a suit. Even having a UL certification, you can - and probably will - be sued if your electrical product causes any damages.

There are, however LOCAL laws requiring UL certification. San Franscisco is one such place, or was at one time. Lots of local building codes require the equivalent of this by requiring all plumbing and electrical work to be "code compliant" to the otherwise nonbinding safety building codes. As with all government/private interactions these issues have been worked by all the parties to extract the most money from the end buyer - you. You want safety. What you get is code compliance, and you often have to buy it.

if you are selling a product that is not UL-approved, meaning that it passes a battery of safety tests, and someone gets injured or killed as a result, you are solely liable for the damages.

In the USA, and recently under the CE certification process in the EU, it matters not a whit whether you get certified. You can and probably will still be sued. However, if you are NOT certified, you will need to prove in court why you were not reckless in endangering people and property, which will make any awards much bigger, and could be used to prove criminal culpability.

I'd like to add that UL approval isn't cheap,

Budget $10k for a cheap, one-pass approval on a trivial product. Retests are generally about the same, maybe a little cheaper. More complex products and multiple passes are worse, perhaps much worse. Or better (!) if you're a testing service.

and you need to submit a complete, sacrificial unit as well as a complete kit of parts for testing. It is not a cut-and-try procedure, and can take many months to process.

Amen.

CSA and CE certification is even more stringent.

Actually, the testing services across the globe have gotten together on a single set of standards pretty much. There is a set of standards, generally similar to the IEC stuff, that can be used to get certification to UL, CSA, CE, C-tick, etc. etc.

That is, it's much better than it was 20 years ago when you had to be an expert on multiple countrys' laws and standards to sell in multiple countries. Now they at least are consistent.


At one time safety labs took pride in being able to find something to fail any product, no matter how well designed, at least once on each testing pass. I knew some of these inspectors. Today, you can hire a testing lab ahead of time to help you design safety in.

Alls it costs is a little money.

[Gibsonman63]

There a lot of people making stupid money doing consulting work to help companys obtain certifications. I used to design control panels for industrial applicatons. Try sending a control system that will operate in a hazardous environment to Russia. Extremely expensive for GOST certification. I am not sure how much if the consultants fee was used to grease the wheels but I am sure that it was covered in the fee.

There a lot of caveats. If you change anything in your design after receiving certification, your modified design will not be certified, so you need to pick componants that you can source for many years or stock up. For the systems I was involved in that needed UL approval $10K was about the going rate. Pay very close attention to grounding and personal protection from dangerous voltages in your design becuase there will be a lot of focus in those areas.