I don't know if you are familiar with the term, Black Swan Event. Said another way, you have had 44 years of great luck. In our profession, this is great but also quite dangerous. We all fight the "that has never happened before" stories. Nevertheless, maybe in your situation the floor drains are not beneficial. One might suspect using the same logic, you don't need safety showers.
Bottom line-I do appreciate your sharing your rationale and your experience. It would be good to follow the earlier suggestion for a conference and perhaps a "best practice" by the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety in writing supporting the best approach to this issue.
Zack
S.Z. Mansdorf, PhD, CIH, CSP, QEP
Consultant in EHS and Sustainability
7184 Via Palomar
Boca Raton, FL 33433
561-212-7288
The reason I oppose floor drains in teaching labs is that the costs are high and the damages prevented are low.
We are renovating a former library into instructional chemistry labs and I successfully fought to remove floor drains from locations for which they are unlikely to provide any benefits. We have no record of safety shower usage in the teaching labs in the 44 years I've been here so a drain beneath each safety shower is wasteful. Although we have had floods related to broken pipes in our old teaching lab building , and fire sprinklers in our newer research lab, floor drains do not limit flood damage because they clog with debris from the melted lay-in ceiling tiles within seconds of the events.
I fully support floor drains in every place where large volumes of water are used, like most research labs and most teaching prep areas, but not in every location in which there is a safety shower.
I think we have 20 floor drains and 17 new wet labs, but most are in prep areas, near glasswashers and autoclaves. Our 20 safety showers are combo units with drained eyewash stations, which I support.
=================
Scott Goode, Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Fellow of the American Chemical Society, ACSF
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of South Carolina
631 Sumter Street
Columbia SC 29208
Mobile: 803-622-1060
Gotta be honest Dr. Goode, there are lots of inquiring minds who like to know-
____________________
Anthony (Tony) Noce
Mobile (518) 466-5608
Office (518) 788-9026
____________________
I will answer you off-line, Monique
=================
Scott Goode, Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Fellow of the American Chemical Society, ACSF
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of South Carolina
631 Sumter Street
Columbia SC 29208
Mobile: 803-622-1060
And, why was that?
Monique Wilhelm
Laboratory Manager
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
University of Michigan - Flint
=================
Scott Goode, Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Fellow of the American Chemical Society, ACSF
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of South Carolina
631 Sumter Street
Columbia SC 29208
Mobile: 803-622-1060
Debbie
I second that motion
There have been a number of people who are in the process of building new labs. I personally wish I had know some of the points made before our new building went up.
How about Lab design with Safety in Mind.
The second topic that has been of great interest to be is the confluence of ADA and safety. There was discussion of service dogs . I have worked with hearing impaired students who could not hear auditory alarms and have asked that we also have visual alarms in place.
Pam
2041 Branard
Houston TX 77098
I think that's a great suggestion and a good fit for Orlando. I'd be happy to collaborate on a symposium on this topic.
Debbie
Debbie M. Decker, CCHO, ACS Fellow
Past Chair, Division of Chemical Health and Safety
Councilor and Programming Co-Chair
University of California, Davis
(530)754-7964
(530)304-6728
Birkett's hypothesis: "Any chemical reaction
that proceeds smoothly under normal conditions,
can proceed violently in the presence of an idiot."
There are always so many questions about safety showers and eye washes. I think that we need to have a symposium on them-.I will have to remember this for Orlando
Melissa,
Push for the drains! Show the cost over time of having testing performed at the recommended frequency without them vs. having them. My experience has shown when the drains were removed due to initial installation costs (proposed as "value engineering"), it wasn't too long after that they were screaming about the frequency of performing flushing/testing. If memory serves, I provided a CDC reference about the eye-damaging bacteria that reproduce in stagnant pipes with the presence of chlorine. The architects and accountants were not available later to justify or defend their "value engineering" decisions, but the initial construction cost did save a few dollars. My recommendation is to push for the drains or define accountability standards to apply later, e.g., is installation cost v. recovery in 1-yr or 5-yr?
BruceV
Hi Melissa,
We are in the process of designing a new science bldg and was told that we can't have drains for the safety showers and the eyewashes. Our architects state the reason is that the size of the drains would have to be very large.....? They also indicate that the cost for plumbing is too great. Have not yet decided if EHS should push for drains or not, or, if it is even possible.
Suzanne
--
Greetings Everyone,
We're working with architects right now to plan out chem labs for a new science building. We've asked for drains under the safety showers and were told that wouldn't be possible because in order to be ADA compliant and have drains, the safety showers would take up too much space- has anyone encountered such an argument?
(Note, we're extremely constrained on space due to some very complicated politics I won't go into here, so making the labs bigger is not an option.)
