In this installment of EHSDA Shorts, Kaylee Venman, Account Manager, SHOEBOX Ltd. explains how employers can find the right room for Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)-compliant boothless hearing testing.
This clip was taken from a webinar titled “Hearing Conservation: Finding the Right Room for OSHA-Compliant Boothless Hearing Testing,” as part of the EHS Daily Advisor Employee Wellness Week online summit. The full session is available for FREE on-demand here.
The webinar was sponsored by SHOEBOX.
Transcript (edited for clarity):
Question: How Can I Find the Right Room for OSHA-Compliant Boothless Hearing Testing?
Venman: The best practice for picking a room will be finding one that is private, where the employee can go in without distractions, without interruptions, to complete the test.
In general, the background noise level should be less than 40 DB.
That’s where your noise measurements are going to come into play to help you know this room is quiet enough. Considerations when you’re thinking about background noise you want to think about: Is there a fridge? Where is the vent from our HVAC system? Is there a photocopier or a fax machine?
You also want to consider where this room is in relation to frequently used exits or doors. If it’s near a fire exit that’s only going to be used in emergencies, that room should be fine. If it’s near a door that people are frequenting, going out to the parking lot, or going into the warehouse, the door will be opening and closing, colleagues will be having conversations as they’re walking by, that might not be your best place to start.
You also want to think about noise coming from outside of the room. We’ll get a little bit more into considerations for external noise, internal noise, but thinking of where this room is. Is it on the outside of your building next to the parking lot where you’re having deliveries come in and out, you’re having employees, shift changes, parking? Maybe not the best place if you have a large window letting in those background noises.
Another consideration would be just the acoustics of the room. If you have a room with hard floors, hard walls, high ceilings, these can be quite reverberant. You can have those background noises echo throughout the room.
When thinking about this room within your facility, sometimes rooms may be off the beaten path in an environment that doesn’t have access to your Wi-Fi. We find this a lot when people are in facilities, they’re getting further away from offices, further away from the production floor, maybe they’re down in the basement, they don’t have access to their Wi-Fi.
So really important to find an option for testing that will allow you to complete the testing offline without an internet connection. You can complete your testing, walk up to your office or wherever there may be Wi-Fi, and that test then could sync up to your database. It just opens up some options for you to find a suitable testing room.
We often recommend looking at your facility and narrowing down to some frequently used rooms. This might include just offices, conference rooms, IT closets, if there aren’t large servers within that closet, lounges, storage rooms, and lunch rooms.