Tips For Handling The Heat

Whether it’s the result of seasonal fluctuations or the type of work performed at your facility, extreme temperatures can affect the body’s natural ability to handle heat, leading to heat illness. Protection against the sun’s UV rays is also essential for workers. It can help employees avoid heat rash and sunburn. Of course, sunscreen works, but wearing the right clothes can be just as effective.

For example, you can have employees wear:

• Light-colored, loose-fitting, breathable clothes
• Short sleeves and shorts while indoors or outdoors
• A cap with a wide brim to protect the neck, ears, eyes, nose, head, forehead; and
• Sunglasses that block up to 100 percent of UV rays

Keep in mind that you can also assign PPE. Warm-weather PPE includes:

• Portable ice packs,
• Cooling vests
• Cooling towels
• Cooling bandanas, and
• Portable water packs.

Moisture-wicking fabrics, ice vests, cooling towels, and bandanas help provide workers with a cooling effect, kind of like what happens as a person sweats. While sweating, heat is lost from the body when sweat evaporates from the skin’s surface. How the body naturally reduces heat depends on air movement over the skin and the amount of humidity in the air. As moisture evaporates from these types of cooling personal protective equipment, it provides a cooling sensation to workers.

When assessing a hot work environment, it’s essential to consider various risk factors. Physical aspects such as age, weight, fitness level, health conditions, and metabolism can influence an individual’s heat sensitivity. Environmental factors also play a significant role, including air temperature, humidity, radiant heat, conductive heat sources, clothing, and personal protective equipment.

There’s more to measuring heat exposure than simply sampling the air temperature. The type of work being performed also impacts the body’s ability to handle heat. Work can be classified as light, moderate, or heavy depending on the metabolic energy required.

There are light tasks like sanding by hand and heavier ones like pounding nails with a hammer using one arm. Using one arm heavily contrasts with using both arms, like when using an angle grinder to cut metal. Then there’s moderate stuff, like cleaning the floor, which involves moving your body but isn’t super tough. Finally, there’s heavy body work, like digging, which pushes your strength and endurance. Each task requires different levels of effort and skill, showing how important our bodies are to perform work safely.

Based on the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) dry bulb temperature measurement — which measures ambient air with a thermometer — most people feel comfortable at 71.6°F - 77.9°F while performing light work. However, as work intensity is increased, the air temperature needs to be decreased to maintain a comfortable temperature.

For work environments where high humidity and low air speed are factors, NIOSH determined that 86°F is the maximum temperature for light work before performance is affected. For moderate levels of physical work, 82.4°F is the upper limit. Based on these wet bulb temperature measurements — which use an instrument to measure humidity — temperatures that reach beyond these threshold values could result in decreased employee performance, increased accidents, and heat illness.

Take steps to keep your workers cool!