Yes July 7th is National Lifeguard Day and you are probably wondering why it is in a confined space blog. Well if you think about it an Attendant is very much like a lifeguard at a swimming pool. A lifeguard can look after the safety a certain number of people under specific conditions. A Confined […]
Tim Morrison
Hey, What Does This Mean?
Last week I ran into a contractor who was repairing concrete using a 2 part epoxy in a water reservoir. He had a traditional 4 gas monitor operating inside and was wearing particulate respirators for the dust (silica) hazard. However nothing was protecting the workers from the ethylene glycol, one of the main components in […]
Hazard Controls
The terms “unsafe” has come up a few times in the last few weeks and I’d like to take the opportunity to speak to this. When someone says they believe a situation is “unsafe and wants to shutdown the job”, I become very nervous. I’m nervous because I’m hearing (right or wrong) “you’re afraid”. I […]
Measuring Hazards
The other day one of our teams was attending a client going into an empty tank. Our team wanted to take a number of precautions whereas the client did not. The team was concerned that the client was taking unnecessary risks. The client, on the other hand, thought we were going overboard. This conflict was created […]
Confined Space Identification
If confined spaces have been around for so long, why is it some of us still have difficulty identifying them? To figure out whether something is a confined space, we have to first determine if the area is intended for continuous human occupancy. Builders and manufacturers by law have to construct buildings and equipment in […]
Confined Space Hazards
In the Confined Space Guidelines, page 13, paragraph #3 reads “Note that even if a space might not be a confined space under the regulations, the employer must take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances to protect the workers entering the space.” Even the MoL recognizes there are non regulated confined spaces that have to […]