Employees in industry and construction are often asked to perform work in confined spaces, but many confined spaces contain serious hazards that endanger the employees who enter those spaces. For this reason, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires employers to implement certain procedures that protect workers from the hazards posed by confined spaces. These include procedures for identifying physical hazards and hazardous atmospheres in confined spaces, controlling and eliminating these hazards, and more.

Action steps

• Evaluate the workplace to determine if any spaces are permit-required confined spaces.
• Inform exposed employees, by posting danger signs or by any other equally effective means, of the existence and location of and the danger posed by the permit spaces.
• Decide whether employees will enter spaces. (If employees will not enter spaces, take appropriate, effective prevention measures.)
• Implement a written permit space program.
• Evaluate hazards of permit spaces.
• Provide employees with the opportunity to observe any monitoring or testing of permit spaces.
• Develop and implement the means, procedures, and practices necessary for safe permit space entry operations.
• Establish a permit system.
• Provide training.
• Perform entry according to OSHA requirements.
• Verify that conditions in the permit space are acceptable for entry throughout the duration of an authorized entry.
• Provide appropriate equipment (PPE, rescue equipment, testing, monitoring, ventilation, lighting, etc.)
• Provide at least one attendant outside the permit space into which entry is authorized for the duration of entry operations.
• Develop and implement rescue procedures.
• If contractors are involved in the confined space entry, follow pertinent OSHA requirements.

Training action plans

Training must be such that all employees whose work is regulated by OSHA’s confined spaces standard acquire the understanding, knowledge, and skills necessary for the safe performance of the duties assigned.

Training must be provided to each affected employee:

• Before the employee is first assigned duties relative to the confined space.
• Before there is a change in assigned duties.
• Whenever there is a change in permit space operations that presents a hazard about which an employee has not previously been trained.
• Whenever you have reason to believe either that there are deviations from the permit space entry procedures or that there are inadequacies in the employee’s knowledge or use of these procedures.

The training must establish employee proficiency in the duties required by the confined spaces standard and must introduce new or revised procedures, as necessary, for compliance.

Training should be specific to the employee’s function relative to the confined space. For instance, if the employee is an authorized entrant, then training should focus specifically on tasks and hazards he may face in this role.

In general, training should cover:

• Equipment to be used,
• Communicating with others involved in the work,
• Hazard awareness and recognition,
• Specific roles and duties,
• Monitoring,
• Medical and first aid, and
• Rescue.

Any work that involves contractors also requires special training and communication, both from the host to the contractor and from the contractor to the host.

Documentation

The employer must certify that required training has been accomplished. The certification must contain:

• Each employee’s name,
• The signatures or initials of the trainers, and
• The dates of training.

Tips

• A permit-required confined space is a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics:
  • Contains or has the potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere;
  • Contains a material that has the potential for engulfing an entrant;
  • Has an internal configuration such that an entrant could be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross section; or
  • Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard.
• When workers enter a permit space, at least one person must remain outside to monitor, summon help, or provide assistance.
• An attendant may attend to more than one permit space provided he/she can perform all required duties without compromising the safety of any entrant in all spaces being monitored (there is no proximity requirement).
• An employee can be both an entry supervisor and entrant as long as the employee has had the appropriate training and the duties of one activity do not conflict with the duties of the other.
• The entrants need to wear chest or full body harnesses with retrieval lines to make non-entry rescue attempts easier.
• The attendant needs to communicate with the entrants to monitor their conditions. If a situation arises that requires emergency rescue, the attendant should summon the rescue service and stay outside of the permit space entrance.
• An attendant can be a trained member of the rescue service, but cannot enter the permit space until the rest of the team has arrived to start proper rescue procedures.

Checklist

View these confined space checklists to ensure safety and compliance at your facility.

Monitoring

• When working in permit-required confined spaces, are environmental monitoring tests taken?
• Are authorized entrants or their representatives provided an opportunity to observe any monitoring or testing of permit spaces?
• Are permit spaces tested to determine if acceptable entry conditions exist prior to entry?
• Are permit spaces tested or monitored as necessary to determine if acceptable entry conditions are being maintained during the course of entry operations?

Equipment

• Is necessary personal protective equipment available?
• Is rescue and emergency services equipment available?
• Is communications equipment provided to allow the attendant to communicate with authorized entrants as necessary to monitor entrant status and to alert entrants of the need to evacuate the permit space?

General

• Are those having active roles in entry operations appropriately designated (for example, authorized entrants, attendants, entry supervisors, and persons who test or monitor the atmosphere in a confined space)?
• Is at least one attendant stationed outside the confined space for the duration of the entry operation?
• Are appropriate rescue personnel available?
• Are permit spaces flushed, ventilated, purged, and rendered inert to eliminate or control atmospheric hazards prior to entry?