Life Safety & Security January 2021

There is no room for error in restoration when dealing with employee
and occupant safety. The restorer must consider other options before
resorting to personal protective equipment (PPE). Restorers are
exposed to too many situations where hazardous materials, pathogens,
and other toxic substances are present, even on the most “routine”
restoration jobs. If your business is not protecting your workers, you
are probably not protecting your customers either.
Most of us understand that grabbing personal protective equipment
(PPE) out of the truck is the last resort and a proper site safety
assessment should be completed first. But there are many restorers
who approach this in a wildly different manner in regards to their day to
day job functions.
Before we talk personal protective equipment, let’s talk about The
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NOISH) Hierarchy
of Controls.
A Job Hazard Assessment is used to evaluate the risks that workers are
exposed to and attempt to eliminate the hazard. When the elimination of
a hazard is not possible, using personal protective equipment is
necessary.
A restorer can easily use the Hierarchy of Controls to eliminate the risk,
substitute the hazard, apply engineering controls to isolate people from
the hazard, change the way people work using administrative controls,
or finally protect the worker with personal protection equipment.
Elimination and/or Substitution
While these are the most effective methods of handling a risk, they can
sometimes be very difficult to apply in the real world, especially in a
restoration environment. A restorer can simply ask if there is a safer
way to perform the task at hand or reduce the hazard of the job. Can you
use fewer harsh chemicals or can you use different tools that reduce the
risks to the worker? Simple risks may have a simple solution. For
example, a trip hazard due to electrical cords being placed across a
hallway floor may be eliminated by hanging the cords along the ceiling,
eliminating a trip hazard.
Engineering controls
If you cannot eliminate or find a better way to do the work, can you apply
a process or piece of equipment to reduce the risk? These actions are
considered more effective and are preferred to administrative controls
and PPE. Engineering controls are effective at isolating people from the
risk. In a residential water damage job, we commonly use containment
barriers to prevent homeowners from easily accessing the jobsite. It is
most effective to put engineering controls at the source of the risk. In the
case of dust containment, your engineering control could be a HEPA
vacuum at the source of the dust, as opposed to an air scrubber in the
middle of the room. However, the air scrubber is a great engineering
control to assist in capturing dust and debris that is airborne as a result
of the drying processes.
Administrative Controls
How are you going to work? This may include changing your schedule
to work during a time with fewer interactions with occupants. You may
implement safe driving practices, like no talking on a cell phone while
operating a motor vehicle. Training staff on equipment or processes is
another way to reduce your risk. This makes sense if you are working in
a commercial space or a retail outlet where customers are coming into
January - 2021