The safety geeks who rescue us before disaster happens
Chicago
The best indication that John Drengenberg has been doing his job well, for 40 years, is that you鈥檝e never heard of him.
Most of the things he makes his living worrying about have probably never bothered you, either. You鈥檙e not, in all likelihood, terrified of being killed by your TV. You鈥檝e probably realized your child鈥檚 Easy Bake is unlikely to burn down your house, and you no doubt pour a cup of coffee without wondering whether the handle will fall off in your hands, spilling six cups of hot coffee all over your cr猫me wool pants.
It is equally unlikely that these things, and thousands of other odd-ball possibilities, will happen, thanks in part to Mr. Drengenberg. He鈥檚 spent his career testing almost everything in the average home 鈥� from the shingles on the roof to the wiring in walls to the microwave in the kitchen 鈥� and making sure it won鈥檛 short circuit, blow up, or otherwise injure the American consumer. In what amounts to a chess of mortality, Drengenberg has spent his professional life imagining worst-case scenarios for almost every product on the market, and then trying to avoid them.
鈥淲e鈥檝e done such a good job for 114 years, nobody cares. They say, 鈥業 bought it at Sears. It鈥檚 got to be safe. Somebody tested it,鈥欌�� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e the somebody.鈥�
Drengenberg works at Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an independent nonprofit that sets the standards for product safety in America. Its 63 laboratories around the world test and approve almost everything sold in America 鈥� every hair dryer, iPod, or length of wiring with a UL seal 鈥� with a few exceptions: cars, cosmetics, and food, for example.
Headquartered in Chicago, UL roots here stretch back more than a century, when William Henry Merrill, an electrical engineer from Boston, went to inspect the Palace of Electricity that year at the World鈥檚 Fair, along the shores of Lake Michigan. No doubt with the memory of the city鈥檚 鈥済reat fire鈥� of 1871 heavy on their minds, Chicago鈥檚 fire inspection board called Merrill and asked him to find ways of lessening fires that were starting with the new-fangled light bulb. At the palace, hundreds of naked light bulbs were strung on metal wire and nailed to posts with metal nails. 鈥淵ou as modern folk, you would never put a nail through a wire,鈥� says Dengenberg. 鈥淏ut that was rocket science in those days. So fires did start, and the result was UL.鈥�
Today鈥檚 UL looks nothing like it would have in Merrill鈥檚 day. For starters, even schoolchildren know something specialists then didn鈥檛: Metal conducts electricity with dangerous ease, and rubber insulates it, keeping the current locked into the wires needed to carry it. More than that, though, the exponential growth of consumable goods necessitates more varied testing than 19th century retailers might have imagined. UL鈥檚 Chicago campus has a lab for testing washing machines and another for making rain to test outdoor lights. There鈥檚 a combustion lab to test ovens 鈥� on a recent day, they cooked 200 pizzas, nonstop over eight hours 鈥� and a strobe lab, where they test fire alarms for the hearing impaired.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got a firing range. We鈥檝e got Magnums, we鈥檝e got rifles, we鈥檝e got 30-calibers, we鈥檝e got all kinds of these things,鈥� Drengenberg adds 鈥� not because they test guns, but because they test bulletproof glass. There are atomic absorption spectrometers to test the lead in paint, and thermal gravimetric analysis machines to test the properties of plastic. You couldn鈥檛 try this stuff at home.
Every product they test is at the request, and the expense, of its manufacturer, who seeks out UL not because it has to 鈥� no federal law mandates safety tests for most items 鈥� but because it鈥檚 cheaper and easier than a product-injury lawsuit, Drengenberg says. In fact, most retailers won鈥檛 stock a product if it hasn鈥檛 been safety tested. But it鈥檚 all voluntary, a tidy case study of the free market at its best: bottom-line drivers of consumer good.
UL isn鈥檛 a monopoly but it is the most well-known of about half a dozen test labs. The UL stamp is both ubiquitous and meaningful enough that, like the cheap electronic goods it鈥檚 stamped on, the label is being counterfeited in China.
鈥淭here are certain product categories more likely to be counterfeited. They鈥檙e the high volume, low cost items,鈥� he says. 鈥淓xtension cords. Night lights. Power cords.鈥� And, this time of year, Christmas lights. For all products that it tests in China, UL uses a silver holographic label, making it more difficult to copy.
鈥淲e have one weapon in the factory.... The UL mark,鈥� says Drengenberg. So UL guards it carefully, through a rigorous documentation process. Every product tested is photographed, all of its parts cataloged, and every test performed described in detail. If it passes, the manufacturer puts it on the assembly line 鈥� but at some point during production, a UL inspector will show up, unannounced, for a spot-check, making sure the company is using all the same parts UL saw on the prototype.
鈥淚鈥檝e gone to factories in the Far East and said, 鈥榃here is the circuit board soldered? I have to measure the temperature of the solder,鈥� 鈥� Drengenberg remembers. 鈥淪o they put me in a car, take me down the street, down some alleys, and we enter somebody鈥檚 house, and there in the living room is the little solder pot, and a man and a woman are soldering circuit boards.鈥�
Drengenberg started as an intern after college, where he studied circuit engineering. He moved up the testing ranks and today is the global consumer affairs manager. He says he鈥檚 a geek, and confesses that a lifetime of setting safety standards can dull a party pretty quickly: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 like balloons. They鈥檙e one of the main choking hazards for little children. We鈥檙e not a fun group. We don鈥檛 like candles, either.鈥�
But sometimes, policing products can be a good time, like when the day is filled by testing TV picture tubes. The tubes only work in a vacuum, which means they鈥檙e constantly under thousands of pounds of pressure. Accidentally hit the TV the wrong way, and you might dislodge the tube. UL tests the safety steel that鈥檚 supposed to catch a tube in that case.
When it works, 鈥渋t hits the front piece and harmlessly falls inside the television,鈥� he says, 鈥渋nstead of blasting out the front like a hand grenade.鈥� It鈥檇 be a serious injury, but so far he鈥檚 never heard of it happening, so Drengenberg indulges a little humor. 鈥淲e see failures, and they鈥檙e such fun. They blow sky high.鈥� From just a standard 12-inch TV? 鈥淵eah 鈥� 27 inches is better. More glass.鈥�
UL can鈥檛 do anything about products they don鈥檛 see, including lead-laden toys from China. Sometimes if they test electric toys, they鈥檒l test for lead in paint. But if the Thomas the Tank Engine set under your Christmas tree isn鈥檛 motorized, you probably won鈥檛 find a UL stamp on it.
Meeting safety thresholds requires patience and ingenuity. Take the refrigerator-door test. The door is one of the most potentially lethal components of the appliance. UL designed an automated green metal contraption to open and close the door 300,000 times, six times a minute, over several days.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 just the conditioning; that鈥檚 not the test,鈥� Drengenberg explains. The lab wants to make sure that, after a fridge has exhausted itself, the door doesn鈥檛 get stuck. So, on the 300,001 rotation, 鈥渨e put a gauge on the door, we pull it open, and if it takes less than 15 pounds of pressure [to open], it passes.... Children still die in old refrigerators because they鈥檙e disposed of ... on somebody鈥檚 back porch.... It might be a fort, or a sibling will say, 鈥楪et in there, you鈥檙e in jail,鈥� and they fit.鈥� But, he says, they only have 15 pounds of force in them to kick the door open.
Harder than gaming out disasters and writing standards to prevent them is gauging how well the standards really work. 鈥淭he fire department can count the number of people that didn鈥檛 get hurt. They can say, 鈥榃e carried three people down our ladder,鈥� 鈥� Drengenberg says. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know. Last night, there wasn鈥檛 a fire in Brooklyn or Chicago, and nobody got killed. But there might have been.鈥�
