Dangers of pressure washing

At Hotsy Water Blast Manufacturing LP, we know that a pressure washer makes difficult jobs easier. But no amount of convenience is worth risking the safety of a person. That’s why we recommend safety first when using or performing maintenance on Hotsy cleaning systems to all our customers in Calgary, Bismarck, Vancouver and everywhere else in North America. The Occupational Safety and Health Association of the United States recently released its list of most-cited violations in 2017. Fifth on that list were violations of lockout/tag-out procedures. As anyone who works in the pressure washer industry knows, these procedures are essential for keeping workers safe in potentially dangerous situations.

If you haven’t heard of these procedures, they’re simply a set of steps that ensure that dangerous machinery remains powered down when it’s being worked on. Machines will be isolated from their power sources and rendered incapable of being turned on until work on them is done. Typically, this will involve locks on power switches or other ways of ensuring that machines cannot be powered on until the person who locked the machine down unlocks it. Of course, these procedures can become more complex as the particular situation demands.

Pressure washers have their own dangers

If not used properly, pressure washers can be hazardous in a lot of different ways. For example:

• The water jets of the pressure washer can themselves be dangerous, as they travel at up to 3,300 kilometres per hour in some cases. That’s more than enough to break human skin.
• Working with pressure washers can aerosolize liquids on machinery, including lethal chemicals. If the proper safety gear isn’t worn, workers can be exposed to these chemicals.
• Cleaning in a commercial setting often requires workers to be in high, cramped, or otherwise dangerous situations. Hazardous places, combined with the propulsive force of a pressure washer, can sometimes cause workers to fall.
• The machinery being cleaned can itself be a danger to workers if the machines are not properly shut down and secured.
• Pressure washers involve water and electricity. This is always a potentially dangerous combination.

One of the big takeaways from learning about worker safety is the importance of having only trained people work on powerful machines. Repairing a pressure washer, for example, is a potentially dangerous situation that should be left to the experts at Hotsy Water Blast Manufacturing LP. If you have a pressure washer that needs repair anywhere from British Columbia to Saskatchewan, contact us today. We have the expertise to get the job done right and safely.