Answers, with the regulation named.
01Published
Do hearing protectors count toward the noise limit?
The 80 and 85 dB(A) action values are assessed without hearing protection; only the 87 dB(A) limit counts it. And 87 is not the number in Germany or Poland.
Read →Why the same shift gives two different numbers
The EU uses a 3 dB exchange rate, OSHA uses 5 dB. One ordinary shift comes out 3.6 dB apart — and the ceiling you compare against differs by country too.
Read →The NIOSH lifting equation, and what European law asks for instead
Six multipliers and a 23 kg load constant. But the EU directive sets no kilogram limit at all, Germany assesses with the Leitmerkmalmethode, and Poland works in kilograms.
Read →02Written per country, not translated
Each guide exists in English, German, Lithuanian and Polish — but the versions are not translations of one another, because the law underneath them is not the same.
Germany's ceiling for daily noise exposure is not the directive's. Poland's is set in a different instrument again, and is assessed on a different basis. A page that translated the English numbers into German would be wrong in German, which is worse than not existing.
So each version cites its own national instrument, and where the numbers diverge, the guide says so and shows both.
03Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell us. Corrections are published with the date they were made, and the guide's "updated" line changes with them. We would rather be corrected in an inbox than in front of an inspector.
None of this is legal advice. It is written to be checkable: every figure names the instrument it comes from, so you can cite the regulation and not this page.