When it comes to our workplace, employee safety is priority. Not only is safety something that is closely monitored, but it is also very important to maintaining happy employees and keeping your good employees around. Air moving equipment can be used to keep employees safe in multiple ways including ventilating toxic fumes, cooling employees to prevent heat stress and de-stratifying air in the winter to maintain a warm temperature.
The ventilation of toxic fumes is very important for the safety of employees, and this can be done utilizing ventilation in a few different ways. The first way is the ventilation of a specific workspace to get the fumes away from employees. This is important in settings where an employee is doing any type of coating, painting or cleaning with harsh chemicals. This can be done with the use of almost any circulation fan including pedestal fans and mobile drum fans.
The second way to ventilate fumes is by the use of through-the-wall exhaust fans in conjunction with an intake or some other source of fresh air. What this does is manage to extract fumes from the building and bring in fresh air to maintain pressure and prevent the creation of a vacuum. In addition to preventing vacuum, an intake also guarantees the workspace has fresh and clean air.
The third way toxic fumes are ventilated is through the use of a confined space ventilator. Not all work spaces are open areas in a factory. Some people work in places where they are not only in a small space, but they are also doing something that creates toxic fumes. Examples of these tasks are cleaning in a confined space, welding in a confined space or painting in a confined space. In restricted spaces gasses build up and do not exhaust on their own. A confined space ventilator is a very powerful blower that, through the use of ducting, can either pull these gasses out or introduce fresh air to this space.
Cooling employees is also very important. During the summer, an already hot workspace can get downright dangerously hot. The use of air moving equipment not only reduces the number of injuries, but it also makes your employees happier and increases work productivity. Simply moving air around through the use of circulation fans can make it feel significantly cooler for your employees and create a much safer environment.
For additional cooling, portable evaporative coolers can actually cool the temperature of the air at a fraction of the cost of air conditioning. Evaporative coolers use evaporation to cool the air up to 30°F and actually cool your workspace. Through the use of an oscillating model or additional circulation fans these evaporative coolers can cool an even larger space. These units will, however, increase humidity, so it is suggested that fresh air is available.
Heat naturally rises and during the winter which means the ceiling is warmer than the floor where employees are working. The best way to combat this is to de-stratify the air. This is to stir it up and create a more uniform temperature — keeping employees warmer and saving heating costs. This can be done in a number of ways, but the main goal is to use a fan to force this warm air down and cause it to mix with the cooler air below.
Safety is very important in the workplace and as you can see air movement can solve a few common safety problems. Ventilating toxic fumes, preventing heat stress and de-stratifying air are some of the many benefits of air moving equipment.