The Autobody Shop Rule regulates the spray application of coatings to automobiles, light trucks, heavy duty trucks, buses, construction equipment, self-propelled vehicles, and equipment that may be towed and/or driven on a roadway.

The rule applies:

• If you spray apply, on any part or surface made of metal or plastic or a combination of both, coatings that contain the regulated hazardous air pollutants.
• Or if you spray apply coatings to more than two motor vehicles or a piece of mobile equipment per year.

The rule does not apply to you if you paint personal vehicles, possessions, or property, either as a hobby or for maintenance and when these operations are performed without pay,

The rule requires that all autobody shops:

• Submit the Initial Notification/Compliance Form to EPA and NC Division of Air Quality.
• Train/certify all painters on spray gun selection, spray techniques, maintenance, and environmental rules.
• Install and operate filters in ALL spray booths, stations and enclosures to catch at least 98% of the fumes.
• Apply spray coatings with a high volume, low pressure (HVLP) spray gun, electrostatic application, airless or air-assisted airless spray gun, or similar application method.
• Clean paint spray guns so that no fumes escape during cleaning.

Initial Notification/Compliance Form - Every shop must submit an initial notification to report spray-coating operations. For your convenience, The North Carolina Division of Air Quality has combined initial, compliance, and annual change notifications into one form. The Initial and Compliance Notification form is a one-time event report.

Annual Change Notification - is to report changes in your operations previously notified on the Compliance Certification Notification form.

Petition for Exemption - is applicable to those shops that no longer use surface coatings containing the regulated hazardous air pollutants, after they had filed the Initial Notification/Compliance form. This petition only applies to motor vehicle and mobile equipment surface coating operations.

Spray-applied surface coating operations, as defined by the rule, are operations using a hand-held device to apply an atomized mist of coating which then deposits the coating on a substrate.

Facilities must comply with this rule if they spray-apply coatings containing chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni) or cadmium (Cd) and the emissions of these regulated pollutants are less than 10 tons per year of a single pollutant, or less than 25 tons per year of a combination of hazardous air pollutants.

Spray-applied surface coating facilities must:

• Submit the Initial Notification/Compliance Form to EPA and NC Division of Air Quality.
• Train/certify all painters on spray gun selection, spray techniques, maintenance, and environmental rules.
• Install and operate filters in ALL spray booths, stations and enclosures to catch at least 98% of the fumes.
• Apply spray coatings with a high volume, low pressure (HVLP) spray gun, electrostatic application, airless or air-assisted airless spray gun, or similar application method.
• Clean paint spray guns so that no fumes escape during cleaning.

Petition for exemption does not apply to this operation.

Facilities must comply with this rule if they perform paint stripping operations to remove dried coatings with products containing methylene chloride (MeCl) on any part or product made of wood, metal, plastic or a combination of these materials and emit less than 10 tons per year.

Paint stripping operations facilities must:

• Submit the Initial Notification/Compliance Form to EPA and NC Division of Air Quality.
• Use best practices to limit the emissions of MeCl.
• Consider alternatives to re-coating without using MeCl to remove dried coating.
• For all work, consider other ways to strip that do not use MeCl.
• Try to reduce MeCl emissions.
• Develop and implement a minimizing plan for MeCl, if you use more than 2,000 pounds per year.

Recordkeeping - records must be kept on file for a period of at least five years.

• Autobody Shops and Spray-Applied Surface Coating Operations
  • Copies of Initial Notification/Compliance Forms submitted.
  • Spray booth filter efficiency documentation.
  • Spray gun transfer efficiency.
  • Painter training certifications.
• Paint Stripping Operations
  • Paint stripping MeCl content information, (e.g. MSDS).
  • MeCl Annual usage.
  • Copy of MeCl minimization plan.

Training Deadlines

• Painters at new sources have 180 days after hire to complete training.
• Painters at existing sources must complete training by January 10, 2011.
• Refresher training is required at least once every five years following the initial training date.

Compliance Dates

• Existing Sources: January 10, 2011
• New Sources: Upon startup after January 9, 2008
  (An affected source is a new source if construction commenced after September 17, 2007, or if new surface coating equipment was installed at a source not actively engaged in miscellaneous surface coating prior to September 17, 2007)