Managers at a drilling site in North Dakota thought they had a heated safety shower. They thought it would perform well in any weather. But during the first week of a cold spell, an employee was hit with a dangerous chemical and needed the shower. When his co-workers turned it on, the water wasn’t flowing. Because the safety shower wasn’t working right, the employee suffered serious injuries. And the company also was at risk because of the liability involved with malfunctioning safety equipment.
Sometimes executives become complacent with safety showers that work well in the warm weather, but don’t consider the modifications that may be necessary to ensure proper functioning in cold weather. Don’t fall into this trap—when the cold weather hits, standard safety equipment can stop working. Compliance, liability, and safety are three reasons why you shouldn’t be complacent with safety in any season.
Compliance issues
Like the company involved in the North Dakota incident discovered, it’s easy to keep up with safety checks in the summer. But when the cold of winter hits, it’s just as important to make sure your safety showers are working. OSHA requirements and ANSI standards help keep your employees safe. But it’s up to you—and your employees—to make sure those rules are enforced, even when it’s freezing.
Heated safety shower standards
- Flow rate of 20 gallons per minute, for at least 15 minutes.
- Water between 60 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Plumbed safety shower and eyewash equipment activated weekly to verify they’re working correctly and to clear flushing out of deadlegs to prevent build-up of harmful bacteria.
- Showers inspected every year to make sure they meet ANSI requirements.
- All employees at risk of chemical exposure trained in using the equipment.
If you want to give your employees the best protection, ATS offers a cost-effective maintenance plan. We’ll do bi-annual checkups, flushing to meet code, water stabilizing renewals for safe water and reasonable ANSI updates of equipment. ATS owns and maintains the showers on this plan.
Liability
Managers at the business in North Dakota thought they’d covered all their bases. They’d checked off all the scheduled safety-shower testing during the summer. So they believed their shower would perform no matter the weather. But they didn’t have a shower made for freezing temperatures. The managers suffered from warm-weather complacency, and their ignorance hurt an employee and the company.
If you don’t know for sure that your safety showers are cold-weather ready, your company may be liable in an accident. If an accident occurs and you’re not prepared, it will likely mean the loss of public confidence in your business as well as unnecessary monetary costs.
We developed our safety showers to exceed OSHA and ANSI requirements. When you partner with ATS, we reduce your liability.
Safe working environment threatened
Just like the workers at that North Dakota drilling site, your employees have come to trust your safety equipment. And for good reason—they’ve been the ones performing all the scheduled maintenance and tests on the safety showers. But if they’ve done these checks only in the summer, they don’t know what will happen in a cold weather emergency. They don’t know if the equipment will meet heated safety shower standards in freezing temperatures.
An accident victim can be seriously injured or develop hypothermia if your shower doesn’t meet ANSI standards in cold weather. Also, when an employee is seriously injured because of unreliable safety equipment, your other employees lose confidence in your business.
Complacency solution
With our ShieldSafe safety showers, no one will need to wonder if your showers will perform in a cold-weather emergency. We build these customizable heated safety showers to work and last in every environment.
Our team designed our showers to withstand the corrosive elements of sea air and water. We even have designs made to withstand hurricane-force winds. We build our products to protect your employees under even the harshest weather conditions.
You and your workers don’t need to fall into the safety shower trap. With work sites in the harshest cold environments, you need a heated safety shower you can trust. With ATS’s ShieldSafe showers, you don’t need to worry about safety, compliance, or liability.
