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When it inspected the paint spray room at Lake Compounce Family Theme Park in Bristol, Connecticut, OSHA identified a handful of health hazards that needed to be addressed, along with four additional physical hazards associated with paint spray operations. Are your paint spray operations about to blow up in your face?
Don’t Go Boom
Fire safety and explosion prevention are vital elements of any paint spraying operation. OSHA identified these four problem areas at Lake Compounce – use them as a checklist to ensure that your paint spray operations are not about to go boom.
OSHA cited Lake Compounce for failing to:
Ground electrical equipment properly. Grounding electrical equipment prevents problems due to insulation failure or other faults that result in leaking current, including electrical shock, fire, and damage to electrical equipment. Under 29 CFR 1910.107, Spray Finishing Using Flammable and Combustible Materials, all metal parts of spray booths, exhaust ducts, and their associated piping systems must be permanently electrically grounded.
On cord-and-plug connected equipment, the “ground wire” is the third or “neutral” wire – the round pin on the cord – which both provides an alternate path to ground for leaking electrical current, and also ensures that the polarity of the circuit is never reversed. Never allow employees to disable this safety feature by breaking off the ground pin on cord-and-plug connected equipment.
Keep spark-producing tools out of a flammable spray booth. Under the requirements of 29 CFR 1910.107, any spark-producing tools and equipment must be kept at least twenty feet from paint spraying operations, or separated from them by a partition.
Dispose of flammable waste properly. The residue from paint spraying operations, including rags and other waste materials, are often coated or impregnated with flammable or combustible finishing materials. This waste material can auto-ignite if it is not properly disposed of. 29 CFR 1910.107 requires that it be placed in approved metal waste cans immediately, and that the contents of waste cans be removed at least once daily or at the end of each shift.
Prevent flammable spraying when a ventilation system is inactive. The standard requires that paint spray operations be ventilated to remove solvent vapors in order to protect against both fire and health hazards. The ventilation system and any electrical equipment used in the paint spray operation must be interlocked so that the equipment cannot be operated unless the ventilation fans are in operation.
Need more resources for controlling flammable chemical hazards in your workplace? Safety.BLR.com can help you extinguish fire and explosion hazards.
The equipment grounding conductor (“the third wire”) is NOT the neutral (or “grounded conductor” on a 120V branch circuit).
Excellent articles on health and safety aspects in relationship to spray painting operations Jennifer. Unfortunately it isn’t uncommon to find businesses that conduct spray painting operations that are not in compliance.
I came to this conclusion from personal experience while working in the automotive body repair industry. My career path would be interrupted several times due to respiratory issues connected to toxic indoor air quality (isocyanates) that would finally force me to train for another line of work. In total I would have to change jobs four times working at three different automotive body shops due to illness. Two of the shops were part of automobile dealerships, the third was a independent body shop that has been in operation since 1963.
The first incident, I would be hospitalized over a week and required several months of rehabilitation. I returned to work at a different position with the same employer and the same environment and became ill once again and was forced to leave, not to return. About a year after that time, I was hired at the second shop. After a short period of time I became ill once again due to spray painting outsider the spray booth. The effects would surface after a shorter exposure period time than before.
While working at the third body shop, the independent body shop, I would experience respiratory issues once again, within an even shorter period than before. I consulted with the employer on my concerns with painters spray painting outside the spray booth and my health issues. I explained that the fumes were pulled from the area where painting outside the spray booth was taking place, traveling across the area where I worked, to an exhaust fan in the mixing room on the other side where I worked. His response wasn’t totally unexpected when he stated, “I don’t know what I can do about it, it’s the nature of the business”.
I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise but none of these shops had a safety and health plan in place, which would have included a program for respiratory protection, monitoring of air quality and employees nor did the employer supply ppe for it’s employees where required. Personal protection equipment was expected to be purchased by the employee, if they were to be used.
In December of last year, I ran across a fourth body shop owner that I have known for a number of years but never worked for. He informed me that a large nationwide body shop chain had recently bought his business of nearly 20 years and retained him to manage the shop. In our conversation I asked about the company’s safety and health program. Although not a direct response, the indication was the company had no safety and health program. I researched the company and according to their website they operate in twenty three states and in most cases have multiple locations within those states.