Stairs that contain three or fewer risers are considered short flight stairs according to safety standard ASTM F1637-21: Standard Practice for Safe Walking Surfaces. Single step transitions are also considered a short flight stair. Short fight stairs can be particularly hazardous for pedestrians due to the lack of visual cues signifying an elevation change. Unexpected changes in elevations can cause pedestrians to misstep and fall. (more…)
Selecting the best or most effective way to reduce or eliminate risk from a particular machine hazard is an extremely important process. It can mean the difference between someone going home and hugging their wife and children…to never going home again. The hazard control hierarchy (see figure below) is an available tool that illustrates what is known to be most effective to least effective when it comes to eliminating machine hazards or reducing the risk from those hazards to an acceptable level. Removing the hazard by designing it out is by far most effective. (more…)
People have too much “stuff”. Manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and commercial enterprises all carry inventory of “stuff”, too. According to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) own statistics, in 2018, the US had over 17.4 billion ft2 of warehouse and storage. Growing from just 13 billion ft2 in 2012, warehouse and storage space is the fastest growing and now the largest use of commercial space in the US, overtaking office space for the first time in modern history.
Almost every one of those buildings contains storage racks. And this doesn’t include the mercantile spaces. You can go to a big box retailer and buy cereal from a lower shelf while pallets of grain or packaged drinks sit 20-30 feet above, waiting to be introduced to the customer.
There is no specific OSHA regulation for anchoring storage racks – (more…)
Fire. Something about fire touches our brainstems…both good and bad! Uncontrolled fire is terrifying and deadly to be sure. But the controlled burning of wood at a campfire or in a fireplace in your home almost can’t be beat, to my mind! For that very reason, a fairly common amenity to houses nowadays is the gas log fireplace insert.
When not installed properly, these logs will generate soot. These soot particles can leave the fireplace and meander. All. Over. Your. House. (more…)
Daylight saving (DST) ends on November 2, 2025, and with it the clocks will “fall back” an hour. While it is nice to gain an hour of sleep, the end of daylight-saving time also comes with a increase of vehicle crashes, injuries, and pedestrian fatalities. This phenomenon prompts the question: What is so dangerous about being a pedestrian at night? (more…)
As we all know, change is a part of life. Sometimes the results from change are good. And we know sometimes change may result in things becoming worse, although it may not be immediately evident. I think it is safe to say that when we intentionally make changes to something, our goal is to make it better with respect to one or more metrics. Engineers working in manufacturing facilities are often asked to make changes to existing machines and processes for multiple reasons: (more…)
Eating and drinking establishments see an average of 7,410 structure fires per year based on a 2017 report published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The report analyzed available data from the U.S. Fire Administration’s National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) and the NFPA’s annual fire department survey for the years 2010-2014.
In the old-timey Fire Triangle, you have heat, fuel, and oxygen. Get these three together in the right quantities, and you get fire. What if the fuel provides its own heat? That’s spontaneous combustion, or spontaneous ignition. NFPA921 defines this as “initiation of combustion of a material by an internal chemical or biological reaction that has produced sufficient heat to ignite the material.” (more…)
A typical residence can have upwards of 10,000 feet of electrical conductors installed, most of which are buried in the walls, attics and crawlspaces. A commercial building can have 100,000 to upwards of 1 million feet of electrical conductors. At each device such as a switch or a receptacle are at least three, and typically six or more connections of these conductors within a junction box. The connections can be in the form of twisted connectors, screw terminals, push in terminals and crimped connectors.
Maybe you, a loved one, or even a client, have been in the unfortunate position, no pun intended, of being the creamy center in a three-car wreck. Odds are high that you have not, but those odds are also equally high that if you have, you will be shown as one of the contributors to the collision. In other words, the wreck will likely be your fault-and possibly the fault of the person behind you as well. Sure, the wreck could be the fault of the middle and third cars… that wreck would look something like this; (more…)
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