Personal Injury Law

Iowa Workers' Compensation - PERC Part V - Drycleaning Worker Ventilation

By Steve Lombardi

Ventilation - Most of the shops studied had inadequate local and general ventilation systems to control worker exposures. Local ventilation can be used to reduce inhalation exposure during a variety of tasks, such as loading/unloading the machine, maintenance, spotting, or waterproofing, but loading/unloading is the most important activity to control.

Ask the owner if the machinery access points provide 100 feet per minute air velocity at the point where your face would be when working at appliance you use. In the NIOSH study none of the evaluated machines provided 100 feet per minute (fpm) air velocity at the face of the drycleaning machine doors. The door face velocity recommended by much of the literature is 100 fpm. In most cases, the airflow was significantly less, and in many cases there was no ventilation. This reduction and elimination of ventilation can be attributed to environmental regulations restricting solvent vapor emissions.

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).