If you work in an industry with workplaces that include tanks, manholes, wells, tunnels, or other small areas, you may be in need of confined space rescue services one day. Anytime that workers need to do their job in small areas, it’s a good idea for a company to have a contract with safety supervisors experienced in rescuing people from small areas. If people not experienced in this dangerous type of rescue attempt to help people their own, they could end up worsening the situation by putting either the person who needs help or themselves in greater danger than before.
Be Aware Of Hazards
Generally, public housing spaces are enclosed or partially enclosed and are not ideal to use harsh chemical cleaners due to poor ventilation. Having a restricted entrance or exit, and can pose a risk to the health and safety of anyone who enters. They can include but are not limited to, underground vaults, wells, storage bins, manholes, silos, pits, pipelines, sewers, and open ditches. Because of the design and construction of most confined spaces, along with any materials or substances in it, these spaces are not ideal to use harsh chemical cleaners. Instead ensure you use a professional and understand the products being used are safe in small confined areas. Here is a website that allows you to compare cleaners and avoid those that use harsh chemical products.
Not only are these areas usually smaller, but the margin for error is also smaller. Any mistake in using harsh cleaners can become potential hazards and can have serious consequences for the victim. Also, conditions in the area can change very rapidly – for example, if a barrier breaks and water begins flooding into space. This unpredictability means that having an experienced, reliable confined space rescue team nearby is very important.
Some of the hazards associated with spaces such as these include poor air quality, temperature extremes, shifting and collapsing of materials, barrier failures, and various fires, chemical, and biological hazards. Not having enough oxygen is one of the biggest problems and reasons for needing a rescue team to help out. The atmosphere in the space could contain a poisonous substance, or natural ventilation could not be enough to provide adequate oxygen.
WHAT ARE THE HAZARDS?
- Poor air quality: Insufficient oxygen
- Poisonous substances: Could cause illness and/or unconsciousness
- Poor ventilation: Natural ventilation is not always sufficient to provide breathable air.
- Chemical exposures: Skin contact or ingestion of certain chemicals could cause illness or death.
- Fire hazards: Explosive/flammable atmosphere due to flammable liquids or gasses and combustible dust which if ignited could lead to death.
- Other hazards: Moving parts of equipment, structural co
For high noise level, risk elimination or reduction measures would require path noise control such as acoustic insulation (lining) or acoustic partition, an enclosure for the noise-radiating source, increase pipe size to reduce steam turbulence or install noise diffuser. The best approach is to control noise at source, such as installing silencer, changing equipment for example changing normal pressure reducing valve (PRV) to low-noise PRV. Other risk controls for high noise level would be wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) or reducing exposure time. The most common hazard for boiler operation is low water and the risk could be a permanent damage to the boiler or explosion.
Modern boilers are usually equipped with automatic level controllers, low water level burner interlocks, low water alarm, and regular checking of gauge glasses by the boiler operators. All these are risk controls by safety devices. Working in confined space is a non-routine activity, the hazard associated with it is physical injuries or fatalities due to asphyxia or poisonous gas, and the current risk control is following the guidelines of confined space entry, which shall not be covered here.
In pouring the chemical into a jar, the hazard is chemical splashes to eyes, and the risk is eye lesion and injury. From this, the risk control would be wearing safety goggles. Another example of daily operation is blowing down. Blow down can cause spillage of hot water, which is the hazard, and may scald boiler operators, which is the risk. The example of risk control is blowing down into the blow down chamber instead of directly into the atmosphere thereby reducing potential spillage of hot water to the surrounding.
In the final stage, after job safety analysis is completed for each activity, the activities, hazards and risks, and the corresponding risk controls should be documented for reference. Based on that, safe operation procedures can be established to ensure risks at the workplace can be eliminated or minimized. Training must be conducted by the competent person-in-charge to all boiler operators to explain in detail the hazards, risks, controls, procedures, and responsibility as well as accountability.
