EXITS


EXITS

Hello there, this is Goke Akingbade (your Safety guide). Today we will be discussing about exits and exit routes. In workplace safety, an exit is the portion of the exit route that generally is separated from other areas to provide a protected way of travel out of the workplace.                                            Our area of focus will be on what is called in health and safety an emergency exit.                              An emergency exit in a structure is a special exit for emergencies such as a fire.                              Every workplace must have sufficient exit routes and exits to use in an emergency.                                                                                                                                                         Exit routes are continuous and unobstructed paths of exit from any point within a workplace to a safe area. Exit routes consist of three parts, which are:                                                                              (1) Access to the exit. (2) The exit. (3) Way from the exit to the outside                                                                                                                                                                  Exit routes include all vertical and horizontal areas:                                                                                       (a)Stairs        (b)Ramps                      (c)Aisles                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          EXIT ROUTE AND EXIT REQUIREMENTS.                                                                                                                                                        In determining the number of exit routes required, we need to consider three criteria, which are:    (1) The size of the building. (2) The building occupancy.  (3) The arrangement of the workplace.                                                                                                                                                         There must be atleast two available exit routes that must be remote from each other. Other means of escape should be available if there is only one exit route.(a) Fire escapes   (b) Accessible windows                                                                                                                                                                                     FIRE RESISTANCE REQUIREMENTS FOR  EXITS.                                                                                                                                                                    There must be a separation between the exit and the rest of the workplace. Exits must protected by a self-closing fire exit door. The fire door must never be blocked.                                                               It is also very important that the exit routes be kept safe. The purpose of an exit route is to reach an exit. Exit routes cannot lead workers toward a dead end, or through a room that can be locked. They must be free of highly flammable furnishings. A safety sign must be fixed on the upper part of the door along the exit route to indicate the direction of travel to the nearest exit.                                                                                                                                                         REQUIREMENTS TO ENSURE THAT EXITS ARE SAFE.                                                                                                                                                                            Exits must lead directly outside or to an open space with access to the outside.                                 The area beyond the exit has to have enough room for the people most likely to use the exit.         Exit doors must be easy to open without keys.  Exit doors cannot have any alarm device that would restrict emergency use of the exit should the device fail.                                                                       Doors must swing out from the room into the exit route if a room:                                                          may be occupied by more than 50 people; or                                                                                              contains highly flammable or explosive materials.                                                                                                                                                                            We will stop here for today. Till I come your way again, please stay safe.

gokeakingbade.blogspot.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAFETY AWARENESS

Safety Awareness Safety Awareness is like almost everything else we do . . . it is learned, not instinctive. We aren’t born with awareness for safety concerns . . . in fact anyone who has a young toddler or grandchild knows this first hand as they see them going around doing unsafe things constantly. We learn through various means. Some learn by doing, others by watching, some by reading. Others learn by their mistakes or the mistakes of others which is one reason we talk about near misses and direct incidents and also emphasize that both be reported by staff that were involved or were eye witneses to these kinds of incidents. So how do you know you have developed good safety awareness? Here are some good examples of behaviours that suggest you have good safety awareness: 1.       Before you begin a job, you consider how to do it more safely 2.       You ensure you know how and when to use personal protective equi...
Read more

Job hazard Analysis

Image
Job Hazard Analysis Hello there, welcome to December. This is Goke Akingbade ( your Safety Guide) here with another interesting topic to dwell on. We will discussing about a very important aspect on occupational health and safety. If the operational activities of your organization put your employees at risk or exposed them to hazardous Job tasks, then you need to conduct Risk assessment of the work. One Risk assessment tool is a Job Hazard Analysis. A job hazard analysis is a risk assessment tool that screens job tasks by breaking the work into key steps, identify potential hazards and prefer safe work procedures to control risk that is associated with the inherent hazards. Any non routine work that poses high risk, any task that can lead to worker injury or illness, any hot work task need a job hazard analysis to be conducted before embarking on it. You can get information about such job task from your accident reports and workers compensation claims. Any job task that has the...
Read more

HAZARD AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOU

HAZARD AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOU. Hello friend, I want to first of all congratulate you on your successful entry into February. We will be going through something that is very relevant to your work and even your surrounding. WHAT IS A HAZARD? This is anything that has the potential of causing human injury or illness. It could be an object say a knife or scissors,stapler for instance.It could also be the state of mind of a worker if he is being distracted while at work and not giving his or her best on the job or an unsafe condition that has been put in place by someone. Another example is say for instance, you spill oil while working in the kitchen and because you are in a hurry, you leave it and you don't clean it up. Anybody that enters into that environment could slip and fall down and sustain some injury.  It is very important for you to be able to identify potential hazards in your surroundings especially where you work because t...
Read more