HEALTH & SAFETY
THE COLOUR PURPLE – A NEW STANDARD FOR PRESSURE WASHING
The Water Jetting Association is about to launch a new code of practice for pressure washing. WJA president John Jones explains why it is urgently needed.
E
very industrial manager can tell stories about how they have come across people doing
something dangerous, blithely unaware they could seriously injure or even kill themselves. It is that ‘oh my goodness’ moment. I have
it when I drive past someone using a pressure washer to clean a car wearing nothing but a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops. ‘Don’t they realise how powerful and
potentially harmful pressurised water can be?’ I think to myself. Again. Technology has advanced faster than
our appreciation of the risks involved in using it. This is happening in the industrial environment as well. Pressure washing is vital across many
industries. Cleaning and degreasing machinery, deep-cleaning floors and decontaminating production vessels are just a few of the tasks it is used for.
SAFETY GAP However, many businesses are not taking nearly enough precautions to protect their operatives or colleagues in the work area when using pressure washing systems. The Water Jetting Association (WJA) is
addressing the safety gap by launching a new pressure washing code of practice. Our aim is to align operational performance and safety with advances in pressure washing capability. The need is urgent. Many operatives do not
receive structured training, do not use the right PPE, and are unaware of the hazards they face. There are also other operational advantages
to using water jetting systems properly. Competent operatives are, by a wide margin, more productive than untrained and unconfident ones. The WJA’s new pressure washing code of
practice is designed to underpin competent working, so will deliver commercial benefits if its standards are built into systems of work.
RISK OF INJURY It is safety, however, that is the WJA’s primary concern. Here is an example of what can go wrong, even for an experienced pressure washing operative. This person had been using a steam pressure washer to clear a frozen drain. As he pulled the hose from the pipe, he lost control of it and the water jet cut through his boot, filling it with 1100C water at 207 bar (3,000 psi), travelling at 440 miles per hour, or 198 metres per second. The incident lasted less than three seconds.
But the operative suffered 4th-degree burns. Skin and tissue were torn from the bone. After emergency surgery, he needed many further surgical operations as continued efforts were made to rebuild his foot. It is just one of many pressure washing
injuries. In another, a dockyard operative slipped due to the unexpected power of a water jet, allowing the nozzle to swipe across his supervisor, lacerating his upper thigh. Again, urgent and extensive hospital treatment was needed.
Seen in this light, wearing shorts and flip
flops to use a pressure washing system that can reach 2,500 psi (170 bar) is less than sensible.
COLOUR-CODED The new code of practice is designed to address this. It lays out, in plain terms, the steps that need to
be taken to optimise the safe use of low-pressure water jetting equipment. It also explains why these steps are important and what needs to be done if something does go wrong. The WJA, founded in 1980, is the UK’s trade
body for the water jetting industry. We follow international NACE standards that divide water jetting into four bands of pressure: * Low-pressure water cleaning describes
activities for water pressures up to 207 bar or 3,000 psi.
* ‘High-pressure water cleaning’ covers
water jetting above 207 bar and up to 608 bar, or 10,000 psi. * ‘High-pressure water jetting’ defines
water jetting above 608 bar and up to 1,700 bar, or 25,000 psi. * ‘Ultra-high-pressure water jetting’
describes all water jetting activity above 1,700 bar. The WJA already had two codes of practice – the Blue Code for high-pressure and ultra-high- pressure water jetting, and the Red Code for water jetting used for drain and sewer cleaning. The new pressure washing code – it will become the Purple Code – will support safe and productive water jetting in the lowest of the NACE pressure bands.
JETTING INJURIES
Water jetting creates three specific injury risks: * Being struck by an uncontrolled hose or jetting nozzle; * Suffering a laceration that causes a massive bleed; * Or a fluid injection injury, caused by the
water jet puncturing the skin and entering the underlying tissue. What is commonly not understood is that a
fluid injection injury can be caused by a water jet with pressure as low as 100 psi (7 bar), just a fraction of the power of even shop-bought pressure washers. There are two other big problems with fluid injection injuries.
Firstly, it is not just water that can get into
the body. The jet can carry other particles and fluids with it, including dirt, bacteria, viruses, parasites, chemicals, oils and grease. The jet can be so powerful that it can enter
a forearm, for example, strike the bone and then be diverted up to the shoulder, causing catastrophic tissue damage and taking these pollutants with it. Secondly, the injection point can be so small,
18 APRIL 2022 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS
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