When OSHA passed the new standards regarding silica in construction (OSHA 1926.1153), the flooring industry was shaken up and shuffled to play catch up. Although the standard was scheduled for some time, many companies seemed to be blind sided and by the time it was enforced, not ready with necessary knowledge or tooling to keep up with the changes.

Silica has been known about since around the same time as they discovered asbestos, yet nothing has been done until now. Many colleagues now have the mindset “Well, it’s too late to save my health, I’ve been breathing this stuff in for twenty years”.  The fact remains that it is not too late to start being compliant with the new rules. Not only does it benefit the customer, but your health is also important. Crystalline Silica can cause silicosis and can be disabling, and in some cases, fatal. The three classifications of silicosis can be found here. 

There’s far too many people out there that think the standard doesn’t effect them, when everyone should be investing in new tooling and putting procedures in place to become compliant. Many, if not all of our patch compounds contain silica. You’re exposed from the mixing stages to the sanding stages. The grinding of concrete and mortar is huge with exposure and you need to know what necessary precautions are based on equipment used  Table 1 from OSHA is a great starting point, but you should also create your own Silica Exposure Plan focused on your own equipment. 

Even on the final sand before resilient is installed, it’s still necessary to hook up a hepa vacuum and have a dust skirt in order to keep the dust at bay. 

Although the push forward has been hard, Preferred Flooring MI LLC is proud to say that we have implemented new procedures and tooling to be compliant with the new standards. We are openly sharing our knowledge with others in the industry and feel as though everyone should take the necessary steps,and make the necessary investments in not only equipment, but time, to become compliant. There’s been some push to have at least some of the additional labor and investment in not only new tooling, but time to educate employees, onto the customer. If everyone pulls together as an industry and all raise rates it would make things much easier. Stores need to educate the customer on why rates are increasing and let them know it’s for the health and safety of everyone involved in the project. 

If you’re unaware of OSHA’s new standard regarding silica, please refer to the linked table one and osha sites above. 

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For direct questions or comments email daniel@preferredflooringmi.com