Much of the manufacturing done overseas in recent years is returning to the United States, and this is a very good thing. Along with this sudden growth in industrial processes, however, comes more welding work and the risk that employees and others can become sick from welding fumes. Robotic welding units are becoming more common as well, and these produce more fumes than human welders, which increases the hazard. Fortunately, there are a number of weld fume collection solutions.
Many reasons to control fumes
Welding fumes are even more dangerous than most hazards in the air because they contain extremely small metallic particles that can get into human lungs. In addition to guarding the health of employees working near the fumes, it’s important to get rid of these fumes because regulations require this to be done. Welding fumes are an issue that OSHA has very strict guidelines about, and being out of compliance when your facility is surveyed can mean expensive fines or even being shut down.
Weld fume collection
There are a number of ventilation and exhaust control systems that can be used to extract the welding fumes present in an indoors industrial operation. In most cases, it’s best to work with an industrial ventilation design company to implement a customized solution for your facility. The right team can not only install new systems and update existing ones, they can identify equipment that is creating unhealthy emissions. It’s critical to remove all welding fumes for health and compliance reasons.