Posted By lisa mccaulder Glen I think you've answered your own question. You have beutifully identified the issues, assessed the risk and now all you need are the control measures. Thermometers, a high temp limit and controls on duration of exposure, plenty of water to drink and a buddy system. You can get little personal thermometers that have timers on and beep if the temp goes above a certain value. I will try and find out where for you Lis..

Posted By Barry Cooper Glen Lisa's advice is spot on. We have employees who have to work in extremely hot and humid conditions, and we work with the WBGT values, and rotate the work which can last for up to 6-8 hours. We monitored the WBGT once and tracked the temperature to work out the work regime Depending on the heat stress index, - 15 min work, 45 min rest moving to 45 min work, 15 minutes rest up to continuous working. Barry

Posted By Lloyd Cole Use of saline drink should be made available. Constant sweating in protective overalls in hot, enclosed and tight areas will cause cramps,and worse, because of the loss of body salts. It may be advisable to add this to the assessment as a control measure. Also consider ages of workers. If you are using the plastic lined coverall some workforces use for protection against fibres, consider looking for an alternative.

Posted By Glen McDonald Thanks for all your comments I agree with Alan for the need to allow experienced engineers to carry out dynamic R/A's and control themselves. The problem I have is with temperatures and durations. Are there any rules of thumb etc for temperatures, work durations and rest times in cool areas? This is the main area I need help with a I mentioned before an assessment on each job would not be practical I would appreciate the information on the thermometers as well Lisa if you have it thanks. Regards Glen

Posted By lewes Would be interested to find out about the personal thermometers that Lisa spoke about. Can anyone shed any light ???

Posted By Jay Joshi I had put together a kit from a scratch, but it was OK for what we did. If anyone has a copy of the now superceded EH 57, "The problems of asbestos removal at high temperatures", refer to Appendix 2 Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (Wbgt) - Apparatus And Formulae The apparatus consists of: (a) a thermometer with its bulb covered by a wetted wick, i.e. the wet bulb temperature (b) a thermometer with its bulb at the centre of a matt black globe (150 mm diameter, Copper Globe with matt black paint-Copper level floats are ideal and almost exact size!). This responds to ambient temperature and to radiant heat which will increase the temperature within the globe. All the 3 thermometers etc can be supported with a standard lab stand/clamps! WBGT is calculated using the following formulae: For indoor applications and for external applications without solar gain: WBGT = 0.7 tnw + 0.3 tg For external applications with solar gain: WBGT = 0.7 tnw + 0.2 tg + 0.1 ta tnw = natural wet bulb temperature tg = the globe temperature ta = air temperature (dry bulb) More sophisticated instruments are available and may be used if their readings correspond to WBGT as measured by the basic apparatus, or allow WBGT to be calculated.

Posted By TBC I haven't seen any response suggesting portable forced ventilation. Doesn't have to be expensive or bulky - just enough to assist.

Posted By Glen McDonald Thanks for the responses everybody Barry - thanks for the information by mail Lisa - thanks for the meter information Talk about missing the obvious (forced /portable ventilation) How I missed thinking about that I will never know. I came across an interesting system the Canadians use if anybody is interested. http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc...ures/humidex_table_e.cfm Thanks again everybody Glen