July 2019 Safety Topic of the Month: Overheating - Man & Machine

With Summer upon us once again, it's time to talk about heat related stress. While considering this topic, I found myself thinking more about people than machines (as anyone truly should) and realized how they truly do go hand in hand. Simply put - if one is overheating, the other is probably overheating (or prone to overheating) given the work environment.

1. WATCH OUT FOR YOUR FELLOW WORKERS/EMPLOYEES!

Familiarize yourself and your employees with the sign of heat exhaustion/heat stroke. Perform an evaluation of your facility - identify areas of increased heat stress, and if possible restrict personnel and equipment from the area, or at least restrict time spent by any one person, rotate employees in quick intervals to further limit time in a high heat area. Identify areas where employees can cool down if exposed to heat - provide drinking water in these areas and keep water close to employees throughout the facility.

 Photo courtesy of Stevens County Fire District No.1's Facebook page.

There are several products available that help beat the heat, evaporative cooling caps, for example are very effective in high heat environments. Keeping up electrolyte intake is important as well, non-caffeinated sports drinks will help with this. There are electrolyte tablets that are effective - but consult your doctor before taking as they are basically sodium tablets. Communication and alertness of changing situation are the constant to avoid heat related injuries and accidents.

2. KEEPING MACHINERY FROM OVERHEATING

The short and simple here is constant monitoring of equipments' gages and alarms. That "usually ignored" temperature gage will need a little more attention in the heat. And close monitoring of coolant levels during pre shift inspections, as well as overall condition of the visible cooling system will be the best guard against an overheating issue. If ANY issues are revealed at that time - TAG OUT the machine immediately and DO NOT OPERATE! Have a full inspection completed by an appropriate repair technician. If the machine begins to overheat, SHUT IT DOWN IMMEDIATELY! - not just for the machine, but for your own safety. Also to consider, if you see a fluid leak - it may not be the fluid you think it is. Case in point, while working onsite at a facility where excessive heat is a constant year round (and worst in summer),  a forklift operator brought over a Toyota forklift "that was leaking transmission fluid". He left the truck running, I hopped into the seat, looked at the instrument panel, and the temperature gage was pegged in the red. Toyota forklifts (like Toyota cars and trucks) use a specific coolant - pink in color, and the forklift operator had mistaken the engine coolant for transmission fluid! (Dexron 3, if your curious). The good news was no permanent damage, the bad news the truck was down for two days for parts, and was only one of three forklifts of that capacity for the whole facility.

To sum it all up - always be aware of your surroundings and be on the lookout for the signs of overheating, in both man and machine!

Tom Kassen  

(Added 7/17/2019) Here is a link to OSHA's page on Occupational Heat Exposure:
 https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/heatstress/?fbclid=IwAR0ilbGgpjDZYxBMh1YRJhVN2dJGQtkc5Fzwl3fR77tQezPUaFESIG0jMSU