Tips To Prevent Fugitive Dust in Your Construction Site

One of the biggest issues in construction sites is figuring how to get rid of dust in the air. Construction processes — drilling, off-loading trucks, demolition, and more — are sources of fugitive dust. This is a multidirectional cloud of dust that escapes into the atmosphere. These particles pose health hazards to your workers and the surrounding community. At the same time, failing to implement dust suppression measures means that you’ll be violating environmental and employee safety regulations. These violations can translate to heavy fines.

Dust prevention techniques are necessary to eliminate the negative implications of fugitive dust on your employees and your business. That said, what tips can you implement to deal with fugitive dust? Keep reading to learn more.

Implement Surface wetting

This dust control technique wets the surface to prevent dust from becoming airborne. You can use sprinklers or hosepipes to implement this method in your construction site. However, don’t assume that “wetting” means using water alone (which is expensive). Instead, you can add surfactants to the water for better dust control performance. They work by lowering the surface tension of water droplets for deeper penetration and spreading over the surface. In addition, this method helps hold the dust particles packed in while using the least amount of water possible.

Employ Misting Cannons

When dust becomes airborne, then surface wetting won’t inefficient. In that case, you’ll need to adopt advanced dust control techniques to arrest the airborne dust. That’s where misting cannons come in. Through a combination of powerful fans, pumps, and perfectly designed nozzles, misting cannons turn water into finely atomized droplets. The droplets collide with the dust particles and bring them to the ground. Misting cannons are designed to produce water droplets of specific sizes that deal with the smallest dust particle. This prevents the slipstream effect, which inconveniences the collision of dust particles and water droplets.

Reduce Vehicle Speeds and Access to Specific Areas

Fugitive dust can result from high vehicle speed on the ground with settled dust. To prevent that, consider using low-speed signs in your construction site or restricting vehicle access to dust-filled areas. This will reduce ground disturbances and create fugitive dust in the worksite.

Avoid Dust-Emitting Activities during Strong Winds

A windy day is a prime condition for fugitive dust. Strong winds act as an agent of dust transmission. They carry away the particles from the source to other parts of the site and surrounding areas. Postponing dust-emitting activities on windy days can reduce their spread thus protecting your workers and the surrounding communities. Alternatively, you can control strong winds by building barriers like fences around your construction site. This reduces wind speeds and disturbance of bare surfaces.

Cover Bare Surfaces with Gravel

Movements of construction trucks on bare surfaces crumble the soil into dust that escapes into the atmosphere when disturbed. Covering such surfaces with gravel (or any other rough material) reduces fugitive dust potential in the construction site.

Fugitive dust has negative implications on your construction site. Employ solid dust control techniques for better employee productivity and compliance with regulations.