Bridge Maintenance and Rehabilitation Projects
EPA, OSHA, Waterways and Worker Safety
Using the Dust Muzzle During Bridge Repair to Collect Toxic Dust
Bridge Painting and Repair
Steel bridges can be found in many cities across the United States. Bridges are important to commerce in that they permit travel by roadway over impassable bodies of water thus making commerce possible. Preserving such an asset requires the state and federal government to paint and repair their bridges to reverse corrosion and weather deterioration.
Aging infrastructures should be every governments concern. By placing greater emphasis on annual bridge painting and repair programs we can enhance the aesthetic appeal and protect the steel bridge elements from environmental effects.
Bridge Maintenance and Rehabilitation Projects
Bridges are located in close proximity to waterways and have a high potential of discharging pollutants directly into the aquatic habitat below during construction and repair. This fact makes it necessary for every contractor to take specific steps to maintain a high level of water quality during their bridge maintenance and rehabilitation projects.
A bridge rehabilitation project may include preventative maintenance or rehabilitation work activities requiring workers to complete tasks like removing damaged paint, pressure washing, removing rust, painting structural steel, applying primer paint, resurfacing decks, repairing or replacing joints and so on. Special care and attention is required of all contractors to follow OSHA safety guidelines while adhering to the EPA’s compliance standards.
EPA, OSHA, Waterways and Worker Safety
The goal of every contractor during a bridge repair or maintenance project should be to maintain public safety, worker safety, prevent or minimize the delivery of sediment and toxic chemicals into waterways and to protect the riparian and aquatic habitat.
Most steel bridges in the U.S. are coated with lead based paints or other toxic paints that have a high potential of discharging pollutants directly into the water below during construction. The EPA requires every contractor to keep the toxic dust these materials produce out of the rivers and waterways they span. Failure to do so will result in huge fines from the EPA, or OSHA or both.
Worker safety is extremely important during bridge repair. Contractors are required to protect the safety of their workers from toxic dusts by following OSHA’s guidelines. Airborne contaminates can present a significant threat to worker safety and health. During bridge repair projects contractors must be able to identify ways to reduce toxic dusts and take any measure necessary to protect their workers from airborne contaminants produced in these types of environments. To reduce your risk, follow OSHA’s guidelines on how many PPM are allowed in the work area and use one of our Dust Muzzles to help you with toxic dust collection.
Using the Dust Muzzle During Bridge Repair to Collect Toxic Dust
The Dust Muzzle has many applications for bridge repair and painting. Dust Collection Products has three types of point of origin dust collectors that can be used to create an inexpensive dust free environment for bridge repair contractors.
How to Use the Dust Muzzle for Bridge Repairs
Repainting on steel bridges generally requires removing loose or flaking toxic paint around I-beams. Having space to work is always an issue. These beams are covered with rivets and it is difficult to get a standard 4 1/2” or 7” grinding wheel into some of these tight locations.
For working around rivets and inside corners, the needle scaler is one of the best tools for peening paint from steel surfaces. The Chip Muzzle is an excellent point of origin tool for converting the needle scaler into a dustless paint removal tool. It comes in many sizes so it can fit a wide range of inline and pistol grip pneumatic needle scalers.
The Dust Muzzle comes in diameters from 2” to 8”. It can be installed on 2″ and 3″ pneumatic die grinders for working in tight places or on the pneumatic and electric right angle 4-8” grinders when grinding on larger surfaces.
Dust Collection Products has a complete line of point of origin dust collectors for these tools. In addition to the dust collectors, Dust Collection Products carries HEPA flow vacuums, vacuum hose, hose splitters, hose Y fittings, battery powered backpack vacuums and everything needed to create a dustless grinding systems for bridge repair.
The Dust Muzzle and Chip Muzzle (all of them) can contain up to 99% of the dust when used with an industrial 2HP vacuum.
Call for expert technological assistance when setting up your compatible dustless bridge repair system.
At Dust Collection Products, the soul of our philosophy is to focus on helping contractors during their bridge repair projects. We want to help every contractor create a safe and toxic free construction environment by providing the Dust Collection tools they need for all of their bridge repair projects.
Dust Collection Products provides the Dust Collection tools that contractors, designers, builders, bridge repair contractors and bridge painters need to eliminate toxic dust, silica dust, fiberglass, drywall dust, anti-fouling paint and other toxic contaminates.
Dust Collection Products, helping contractors, designers, builders, bridge repair contractors and bridge painters manage their painting, repair, maintenance, rehabilitation and remodeling projects in a DUST FREE Toxic FREE environment.
Dust Collection Products in San Diego manufactures and sells a complete line of dust collectors for hand tools.