Time for a Safety Inspection? Here’s What You Need to Look For

A lot of businesses are prepping for their grand reopening. They will be moving their workforce back into office buildings and away from home. It should be a relatively simple transition. Most office buildings contract cleaning services for the basic tasks. The landlords are also responsible for deep structure maintenance such as HVAC, water safety, and electrical wiring. If you rent space in an office building, you are likely not even responsible for changing light bulbs.

If you own your office space it is a different story. You are responsible for everything, including infrastructure. This will also be true for industrial spaces. This is also likely the case for small retail businesses along the boulevard. Although you are leasing the space, you are most likely responsible for everything, especially if you have a restaurant. You are not only responsible for the safety of your staff. You are on the hook for the safety of every patron who walks through the door. You have to be on top of everything. It is all a part of the cost of doing business. There is a lot more to a safety inspection than keeping the floors clean. Here are a few other things to inspect that are easy to overlook:

Ductwork:

If you are responsible for the air quality of your building, you already know about how challenging it can be to keep the air clean. There is only so much external air purifiers can do. In one case study, GE used the Guardian^® S remote visual inspection robot to streamline the process. This is what they said about the challenge they needed to overcome:

●      Current inspection process required employees to work at heights

●      Results were incomplete as access limitations meant employees couldn’t reach the entire lengths of duct work, or couldn’t access tight, small, spaces

They were looking for an alternative method of ductwork inspection that didn’t involve workers being on dangerous lifts and manually reaching inside ducts for less than optimal results. This was the outcome:

●      The Guardian S inspection robot successfully navigated the dust extraction system

●      4K video and images captured in real-time allowed GE to experience the inspection as it happened

●      Labor hours reduced from 448 to 24, 1½ week inspection completed in 1½ days

●      Cumulative manufacturing downtime reduced from 8 to just 2 days

You don’t have to be as big as GE to recognize the challenge inherent in duct inspection work. If your company produces dust and fumes, air quality is essential. Be sure to thoroughly inspect the ductwork as a part of your routine inspection practices.

Water

Some parts of the world are not blessed with clean, safe water. Even in the States, water quality can vary wildly based on location. The good news is the same water cleaning processes for homes will also work for small businesses. Many retail storefronts are no bigger than a house or apartment. So the same reverse osmosis filtration and purification systems will serve both a home or a small business.

It is obvious why a small restaurant would need the cleanest possible water. But even businesses with a water fountain, or a hand-washing sink also need to monitor the quality of the water. You should perform periodic tests for rust and corrosion in the water. There are ways to deal with these problems without ripping out all the pipes. But the first step is to inspect so you can know what, if anything you need to do next.

Pests

Are you looking out for signs of hungry pests? You should be. Their presence is not always obvious. The first signs might be outside in the form of v-shaped holes in trees and rotted leaves. Unwanted pests cost millions of dollars in damage to the environment. You don’t want them on your property. Pest control is not merely an inside job. You have to consider the entire property, especially if you have a business with outside seating.

Inspection is not just something you do when you first open. It is something you do on a regular schedule or whenever you believe you might have a problem with the ductwork, water, or pests.