#53: Confined Space Training- Do You Need It?

This week's episode should you have confined space training .

And , if so , what level ?

How much ? Why would you not want to have training ?

It's awesome , I love training . All right , here we go , let's dive in .

All right , this week , confined space training , we do a lot of it . You know why ? Because I like doing it . That's pretty much it . When you're an owner and you're like , okay , there's all these things you can do for safety services , well , I like training .

It's not boring , there we go . I can't do hearing training .

Actually one of the reasons I like training . Let's see how the screen is . You can get a free hat or a free shirt if you go to our training , and all different kinds .

So I know I give stuff away for free because I like it so much yes , you get free stuff .

But , so .

So part of this is every place that we go that manufactures anything . That's one of our clients . They have confined spaces , so they are automatically right off the bat doing awareness training . What's awareness training ? Hey , we have confined spaces here , don't go in them if you don't have more training , that's it , more training than what this is .

Because people will say well , we don't in our confined space , we don't need all this .

Right . So what is awareness training ? It's not for entering , it's not for being an attendant , it's not for signing permits .

It's like it could be 15 minutes .

It's not for managing a contract or entry . Yeah , Awareness training is literally like 15 minutes . Here's what the sign looks like Don't go in . That that's it . I guess the biggest question is should you have confined space training ? Do you have spaces One ?

Which you have other episodes , tell you how to select and fill assessments .

Yep . Are you breaking the plane ?

That's it so it's labeled confined space . Are you breaking the plane ?

Yep , Do you have to look in reach ?

in .

Grab something , shine a light in it , take a swab , stick your head in , put your whole body in there , climb all the way in . Stick your head in . Put your whole body in there , climb all the way in . Are you doing any of those things ? And I don't mean just during normal production , I mean during the entire 24-hour cycle .

And if you say yes , Well guess what .

There's a good indication . You may need a little something more . So from that moment on you can kind of decide okay , we know we have spaces . Currently we're breaking the plane of these in some fashion . Do we want to be ? Is this something we want to do in-house , or can we contract that job , task or that situation ?

out . Now we actually tell people I just told you we do training right but we actually tell people don't hire us for training , because you may not need it . You have to be risk-based .

Yes . So therefore , if you decide that you are going to contract it out , whoever is going to be kind of managing whatever that process looks like hiring that contractor , working with them , checking on them , signing off on their permit . Most of the time , locations have to sign off on a contractor permit to say , yeah , they're meeting the intent .

That's how I end up training , meeting and exceeding the intent of what's going on .

So that could be easily a two to four hour training if we're just doing those things , and it's a very , very limited group .

We want to control that . When I do that class it is very , very detailed . We're basically working on contractors going into spaces . Here . It's different than just a regular person doing an entry .

Yes . So that's the thing is you want to again we talk about this in all of our episodes provide training for the job tasks you expect your managers and employees to do . So that's just an example of you want to make sure that you're doing that . So if you're going to contract that out .

Yes . So if they do that , you still have to train people on your side .

Well , you've got to know what should be on the permit too , if a contractor rolls up and they've got a permit . And it's about six line items . No to that , immediately no .

What's the number one thing ? The contractors don't ever bring Rescue .

Rescue immediately .

No guess what's the number one thing ?

the contractors don't ever bring rescue . Rescue they never do , it seems like . So the next moment is , as someone who's managing that situation , you've got to work with them . Are they going to contract someone out ? That's great .

Do you have some agreement ? Some plants say you're the contractor and I provide the rescue .

Well , now , that's a that . So what you need to know is , when you're hiring somebody from a contract side , you've got to make sure you're comparing apples to apples when you get those bids . Somebody may be cheaper , but maybe they're not willing to provide rescue . Well , we've still got to cover that somehow .

So now you've got to train those . So the training has so many versions of whether you need to or not , based on what you decide as a business , it sure does , and the one segue that I will make in there is we hear a lot .

well , the fire department will provide rescue . I would really heavily encourage you to contact that fire department and see what their response time is , where they're located , how long it takes them , because sometimes that's not adequate .

It's not real sometimes .

If they're on a different call , or if there's traffic , or if maybe you don't even have technical rescue where you're at .

You're talking about six minutes . So when you go back to training you decide can we get him out of there in six minutes ? If no , then maybe you need training . Correct , correct , all right so now we have contract , so that's one way to manage it , but maybe I decide to do it in-house .

Maybe I decide to do in-house .

So , maybe I'm going to probably be cheaper to do . I've got 400 spaces , but I'm only going into 10 . So how much training do I need ?

Well , only for that 10 . Yeah , train on what you expect him to do . Absolutely , I don't need to train him on things we're never going into and I'm never doing Just like . I don't need gear for that either .

That's correct .

I need gear for what I'm doing and I need to train my employees on that gear with those .

But buy the gear also based on what you're going to allow your people to go into .

Absolutely . I mean in all honesty . We're not sponsored by any equipment manufacturers , which you know , and so anytime we give equipment recommendations , it's purely what we've seen work . It's got to be user-friendly to your location and it has to be for the environment that y'all are going to be using it in . So when ?

we talk about we work in gross environments .

We do I mean and in all weather . So when you are talking about , do you need training , you want to make sure you're training on your gear in the environment , in the weather scenarios that you're going to be making these entries in Because that's how you find out if what you bought really works or not .

We train in wastewater and rendering and the roof and in the snow , because you know what they still have to do those entries in those conditions you . Because you know what they still have to do , those entries in those conditions . You've got to train in those yeah . So part of your training is you not only have the training , but you've got to do it .

Yes . So the next piece of that is again what's my rescue plan going to be on ? If you need training , are you going to be doing it internal ? Are you going to ?

be hiring . I have to buy SCBAs now .

No , okay , no . So just because you have a rescue team does not mean that it's big and bad and scary and I've got to have air packs and I'm doing fit tests and physicals and medical clearances . No , we have lots of places who do rescue , but they don't do rescues in bad air . How do you know ? If it's bad air ? You have a meter .

It could be a cut leg . It could be a heart attack .

It could be a broken leg .

I tripped and fell weird Because it was slick inside and I didn't realize it .

Yeah , I fell weird and my leg went this way , my body went the other way . You know , I mean , we have those , we like that and we're doing the same kind of maintenance job tasks inside the space . I have the same opportunities or potential that I could have that same kind of injury if I'm using a grinder and it slips or something . You know what I mean .

We've been involved with a lot of entries and things have happened and we've had to go to work . Events that happened , yep , and hardly any of them had SCBAs related First aid . Cpr is needed , but this is also needed if you're going to go into that space .

How do you do it inside the space ?

Yes , Because , doing it , we talked about heart attack a few weeks ago when we were in a mixer blender . The bottom of it's curved .

for those of you who don't know , Yep , and it's got paddles that freely rotate .

There's nowhere a compression in there .

You can't .

So your process is other avenues of doing that , but you just need to know they do tie together . But that's why you have to do it on the spaces you're going to go into .

Yep , so , yep , absolutely so . I think that that's all for us today . Again , if you want more information , allensafetycoachingcom , an entire confined space module where this topic , along with 17 , 18 other topics in there , over 100 different lessons . So if you want an economical way to navigate , that that's absolutely it .

Thank you for listening .

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