Exhaust Ventilation

The first engineering control is exhaust ventilation. As you learned earlier, lead often enters the body through inhalation of lead-laden dust, which can be generated when power tools are used to remove lead-based paints.

Reduce the chance of lead inhalation by equipping these power tools with dust-collecting attachments that exhaust the paint through a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) vacuum system.

Here are some more task-specific operations related to lead dust ventilation:

• Welding, cutting and burning, and heating can give off lead byproducts. For these operations, use local exhaust ventilation.
• During cleanup of lead products, use HEPA vacuums.
• When conducting abrasive blasting operations, build a contained structure that will ventilate lead-containing air, reduce exposure to airborne lead, and increase worker visibility. Ensure this structure has a dust collector that will prohibit the emission of particulate matter into the environment. Keep the lead-containing area under negative pressure to decrease the possibility of lead contamination in areas outside the contained area.

To learn more about Construction Lead Safety visit our Construction Lead Safety Online Training Certification web page.