Challenge

Activities such as painting, welding and burning, cause dangerous fumes that can quickly damage your health if not properly controlled. It is important to capture and filter these fumes at source, whilst continuously forcing fresh air into the work area, to ensure that workers can continue their activities in a safe environment.

Risk

The effect of fumes varies substantially depending on the exposure time, type of fumes and concentration of fumes. Workers could therefore experience anything from dizziness and fatigue, to lung disease and heart disease. Some of the more volatile fumes, such as welding fumes, have been classified as carcinogenic, which means that they can cause cancer.

Solution

RVT believe that effective fume control can be managed in three easy steps;

1. Capture the hazard - Using appropriate extraction equipment, you need to capture the fumes as close to the source as possible.
2. Contain the hazard - Contain the area to ensure that harmful fumes, gases and vapours cannot affect those working nearby.
3. Control the hazard - In addition to extraction, you need to ensure that you have sufficient positive pressure ventilation in place to dilute the residual contaminates in the air.