Jill James:

This is, The Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded September 11th, 2023. My name is Jill James, HSIs Chief Safety Officer. My guest today is my friend, Dr. Todd Loushine. Todd is Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater in the Occupational Safety Degree program and is also Vice President of ASSPs Region Five. Todd is a professional engineer, a certified industrial hygienist, and a certified safety professional. If you've been listening to this show for any amount of time, you've heard Todd a number of times now and today I've asked him back to discuss a hot topic. Hot topic is a pun because we are actually talking about heat as in workplace heat. Todd used his background as an IH and engineer to successfully cool the workplace. And every time we talked this summer, he told me about what he was doing and every time he told me about the things he was deploying and using as an engineer and as an industrial hygienist, the more I wanted him to share what he learned with all of you. So welcome back to the show, Todd.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Thank you for having me back, Jill.

Jill James:

You're welcome. So we have a lot of places we'd like to go here, and I know we want to talk briefly about OSHAs proposed regulation. But just to try to set the stage a tiny bit, how is it that a professor at a university ended up in a workplace trying to solve a heat related problem? Well, you want to just start there a little bit and we can come back to that story, but how did that happen?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Well, I don't have much of a personal life. No. It came down to a lot of people come to me to help fill positions because I've got current students, former students. And when I was originally contacted, a friend through a friend, I thought maybe they wanted an intern. And so I set up a meeting to hear more about it so I could try to get them the right students. And it came down to no, they need someone boots on the ground because their current safety director, EHS manager, had gone off on a personal leave and they weren't sure when they were going to get back. And I went and toured the plant and I really liked the people. I really was interested in what I could do there. And so I just said, "Hey, would you mind if I applied?" And they said, "Yes, when do you want to start?" So that's how it all happened. It was a series of luck basically that allowed me to get in there. And even though I am exhausted from holding two full-time jobs, I wouldn't have traded it for the world. Such great people, I've learned so much and I've been able to test so many things that I've been teaching or assuming for years that I feel that I'm a much better well-rounded safety professional and I'm a much better and applied professor.

Jill James:

That's wonderful. How many months have you been doing this moonlighting gig?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

I started three days after Christmas last year.

Jill James:

Okay. And you're not doing this forever, there's an end date, right?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

There is, yeah. I'm going to help them try to find a replacement and train them in at the end of November into December. So I'm hoping by the end of 2023, I just have one full-time job.

Jill James:

Tight. Exactly. Oh, man. Interesting. Well, it's been so fun to be a part of the journey with you and hearing about what you're learning in this facility. And in the introduction I talked about OSHAs proposed rule is for indoor and outdoor workers in the setting that you've been moonlighting in has been an indoor workplace. And that's something that I think in a stereotypical fashion when we think about workplace heat, we think about people who work outdoors. Which they're exposed to a lot of heat too, but we are seeing so much more indoor exposure to heat as our planet continues to warm and places in the country that used to be cooler are now hotter. Is that what you're noticing too?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Yeah, definitely. You don't have to look very far. You can look at the National Weather Service or NOAA and they basically have already identified the summer of 2023, the hottest summer on record.

Jill James:

Yeah. So Todd, let's talk briefly about OSHA and their proposed regulation and what's going on there. And maybe you and I can also add our own history of what we know about OSHA and how slow the wheels of change move within the agency when it comes to proposed rules. But do you want to give a recap what's going on there with OSHA?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

It's quite the journey to figure out what they have done. And so it looks like they originally proposed the beginning discussions of assembling a group to create this heat standard to cover all workplaces in October of 2021. And they were hoping to wrap up the comments before December of 2021. Well, they've extended that deadline now, and I believe they extended it a second or possibly a third time. Simply because this is not a... Okay, I hate to bring this up, but I am tripping over it similar to the ergonomic standard. It's like, "Yes, we need it." But when you try to set up certain standards, it doesn't fit all the workplaces, or all the situations, or overexertion of [inaudible 00:06:12] don't occur in people the same way because there's individual resistance or adaptability. And so I think that's where they're having issues that it looks like they're maybe trying to set something up by region. And I think that that's a good idea because us people up north, we have thicker blood, and so we like the cold. Down south, they like the heat, and so they're better acclimated to it. They can put up with more of it. But it was just interesting this summer to see the extreme heat that they're experiencing down there. And then we get a heat warning, excessive heat warning up here in the upper Midwest. It's scary for us. We're not used to it. Our bodies can't just adapt instantaneously to high humidity, high heat. They're a little bit more better for that, but when it gets really cold, we're in a pretty good position. It's like, "Oh, it's negative 200. Yeah, I can put on a jacket now."

Jill James:

We know what we're doing. And Todd is saying from the upper Midwest, Todd currently lives in Wisconsin, I live in Minnesota. We both were born and raised in Minnesota. So we're talking about the upper Midwest. When we think about what you said about OSHA and a proposed standard, so proposed standard means OSHA comes up with this idea on the most basic level. And you come together with a draft regulation, and then when you try to promulgate something new, there's a public comment period. And that's what Todd was talking about. So everybody, including everybody here listening has the ability to read the draft and comment on it. And Todd, you were saying they've extended the comment period a couple of times. When I checked it earlier today, the previous comment period had closed in January of 2022, and at that time there were 965 comments, individual comments, and now it's been opened again. And so if anyone wants to be able to comment on that regulation, OSHAs actually asking for more. And they're specifically asking for certain types of industries to comment because they want to hear from everyone as they're trying to pull this law together. And yes, the wheels of change at OSHA do go very, very slowly. For anyone who is familiar with the OSHA 300 Log, which you likely all are, it used to be called the OSHA 200 Log, and it took 10 years, 10 years, Todd, remember that 10 years, they kept saying, "Oh, we're going to update this thing." Took 10 years before it went from the 200 Log to the 300 Log. Hopefully this standard doesn't take 10 years.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Right. And even to go more into... I'm scrolling through as we're talking and in referring to again, the ergonomic standard that was repealed, it's difficult to come up with a one-size-fit-all like the machine safeguarding standard. You can pretty much apply that in all different things. [inaudible 00:09:21], the same way. You think of some of the health standards. They've got really good data. For this... Oh, man. I think one of the sticky points especially when they do get it adopted will be the work rest schedule. I know ACGIH before you had to pay to access their stuff. When you reach a certain wet bulb globe temperature or heat index, there's like a percent of the hour they should be resting in a cool place versus working. And then we have to start thinking about... what do they call that? Reasonable accommodation. I believe that's the work comp term in order to how much are we expecting employers to... I don't want to use any bad terms, but can they still be profitable when workers are only putting in 15 minutes every hour based on their schedule?

Jill James:

And certainly there are things that you can do to mitigate that so the company can continue to be profitable, which are some of the things that you did this summer. Before we get to that, I just want to circle back in case someone's saying, "Hey, wait a minute, I want to comment on this proposed law. Where do I go, Jill and Todd?" So it's regulations.gov, and you'll be able to find the OSHA comment there. So it's the comment period on Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings. And maybe we'll be able to include that in show notes for the podcast. Todd, you said a bunch of words that some people might not be familiar with, wet bulb and dry bulb, temperatures and humidity things. I wanted to just circle back for a second before we get into that. This regulation that OSHA is proposing, it's new for OSHA, but it's not new for all OSHA. So when I say all OSHA, I mean state OSHA programs. There are three state OSHA programs in the United States that have laws on the books already regarding workplace heat. So those states are California, Minnesota, and Washington. Minnesota where Todd, you and I, worked for OSHA, they've had a law for a long time, a unique regulation for indoor workers. And some of the things that you just referenced a moment ago are pieces of that law. Washington has one for outdoor workers. And so if anyone wants to look up that to be able to use any of those regulations maybe as a guide in your own workplace, you can certainly do that as well. I just want to cover one more thing with OSHA before we dig into some other things. If employers right now are listening, you as EHS practitioners are listening and thinking, "Well, maybe I don't have to worry about this until this law comes to pass in terms of should I be doing things or do I have to tell my employer maybe we don't have to do anything right now because there isn't a law." Todd, do you want to talk about how OSHA might propose citations against an employer when there isn't a law that's specific?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

They currently use a general duty clause.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

The 5A1, because it's a known, it's a recognized hazard. And what they're basically asking you to do is assess it. If people are working outdoors or they're in indoors and either in a heat producing industry or environment, we're talking laundry, we're talking bakery, any machines that give-

Jill James:

Foundries.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Foundries, definitely. Or a building that just doesn't have air conditioning. You'd need to take steps to protect your workers. It should be somewhat common sense, but some places probably think, "Well, it's hot outside, what am I supposed to do?" Well, there are things you can do.

Jill James:

Right, for sure. So when we think about the law, what's the justification for doing it and the question might be, are people dying?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

They are. And they try to give you the 10 year, "Oh, in the last 10 years, 15 years, this is how many." I quickly looked at the numbers and it's usually about 0.9 to 1.4% of all the fatalities are caused by heat related illness. But let's not use just that statistic to justify the need for a standard because you have to look at the emergency room visits. You have to look at people who just fall ill at work. And here's the thing too, Jill, and heat stress, that's actually the feeling of it. Heat related illness can actually affect a person's ability to comprehend what's going on around them, possibly mitigate their ability to control their body. And so it actually puts them in harm's way that maybe they can't respond to normal issues in their work environment, or they may overdo it in some capacity. Overexertion was the word I was looking for.

Jill James:

For sure.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

And some of the sensors that I put up around my plant, it would give me that warning that it's getting hot and did you know that when it's hot, people may not make the right decision? And then we talk about, "Okay, you're required to wear personal protective equipment." Well, that's going to affect them too. They may not want to wear it. It may be uncomfortable to be sweaty. So there's a lot of secondary and tertiary concerns when it comes to people who have to work in hot environments and how their bodies respond to it. Okay, go ahead.

Jill James:

So you mentioned heat related illnesses, and one of the places you likely started when you've been working in the plant is educating employees and management about what heat related illnesses look like and the biology and mechanics of it. Do you want to talk about that piece briefly and what you learned and some of those key things you shared as we continue to move on?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Of course. So one of the first things is I was told that, "Oh, it gets hot in here in the summer." So then I sat down with representatives in the safety committee and I said, "Give me some more information." This is the workers' recollections. And they said, "Yeah, it seems to get really hot. They might bring us some treats or something, but it just seems like the company doesn't have much of a plan." So I'm like, "Gulp, let me get on this." So in my first meeting to the big group, I expressed how concerned I am about how people adapt to their work environment or don't when it comes to working in heat. I explained some of the basics, but what I really focused on is when I was in graduate school, I got done with work early one day and I was waiting for my wife to come pick me up. So I was playing some two on two basketball behind one of the athletic complexes in Madison. And all of a sudden I just felt horrible. I was disoriented, I was sweating excessively, I started getting nauseated and I said, "I got to get out of here." And I went and got some Powerade or Gatorade to sip because they had vending machines on the inside. And I sat in the shade and just realized this is heat related illness. I'm going through it. And I did not expect it to happen. I hadn't played basketball in a while, but that shouldn't have caused it, but it was a frightening experience. And I can only imagine a worker on a line and they're just not feeling well, but they're looking around at everybody else and nobody else seems to be responding. So they're like, "Well, maybe I ate something I shouldn't have, or maybe I didn't get enough sleep," or something like that. But it's that wait and see approach to it that makes it fatal. Because if you get to a certain point, the body is going to convert its objective to protecting the internal organs, and now you have limited blood supply going to the extremities, and that means the brain too. And it's just putting you in a situation where things can go rapidly scary quickly. And so being aware, taking steps as soon as a symptom presents itself, you should be able to provide immediate relief and make sure the person doesn't have to rush to the hospital, but to know that rushing to the hospital is a possibility when a certain threshold of symptoms has been exhibited.

Jill James:

Right, exactly. And so for those of you listening who haven't thought about providing training for employees on what does heat related illnesses look like, how do they present themselves? What actions should you be taking? When should employees be reporting things to you? Add that to your ever-growing list of things to do, for sure. Todd, you talked a bit about heat versus humidity. So lets dig into that piece from your vantage point as an industrial hygienist. How is heat measured? What do you measure it with? What's the difference between heat and humidity and maybe some approaches people can take if these are unfamiliar things to them?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

And just to go what you had just said for the audience, the two sources I use would be the osha.govheat and then also heat stress under NIOSH. Those are my two primary sources. But then as an academic, I also have access to published research and so I did borrow from all three sources when I was putting together my program. Now back to the question you had just brought up about temperature, humidity and what that does? So let's boil this down to its essence, and that is an individual is attempting through their exposure to environmental conditions and the work they're doing, so they're generating heat within their body, to regulate to a certain temperature. As you all know, when we have an infection, viral bacterial infection, we may run a fever. That's the body's response to attempting to fight that infection. But in this case, it's not the body attempting to heat itself up. It's the body's inability to regulate itself given the temperature and humidity in their environment. And what that basically is, what do we do when we get hot? We sweat. And it's the evaporation of that sweat that gives the skin the cooling. And the body tends to then also put more blood flow towards the skin to capture that cooling and send it back through the body in order to regulate the temperature. When the environment becomes more humid, and we're talking humid above 70 for sure, 80 is much more dangerous. Anything below 50 we consider somewhat comfortable, that's the decent humidity level in which people can sweat, have it evaporate and cool. But when it gets that high and when the body can't achieve adequate cooling through sweating because the sweat is not evaporating, or the person isn't sweating, that's a dehydration condition. The body is just going to continue to heat up. It's almost like a runaway reaction. And so therefore you have to also train on symptoms too. So we can look at temperature, we can look at humidity. When I talked about wet bulb globe temperature, that also includes radiant heat. That's the black globe, is that globe temperature? Yeah, I think they call it globe temperature. I was dealing indoors, so I don't have to worry about that. But when you're outdoors, yes, radiant heat can also be a factor.

Jill James:

So let's talk about... Thank you for that piece on what's happening in the body. Let's talk about how do you go about measuring the temperature, not of a human being, but of the atmosphere indoors or outdoors. Same thing with the humidity, what sort of devices do people use, Todd?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

One is a wet bulb globe monitor, a heat stress monitor, it measures that for you. You just tell it whether it's indoors, outdoor, and it calculates it for you. But for those of us who can't afford those types of gadgets, there's ways to estimate or extrapolate. I know that OSHA has a heat stress app you can attempt to use. That's more going to be based on meteorological data. Indoors, you can use your basic thermometer to measure it, but humidity can be a little bit trickier. You could use the archaic sling psychrometer, which it has a wicked with a U dampen, a wick below one of the thermometers, and the other is the dry bulb. And you swing it like a numchuck and you can estimate the humidity that way. What I did in my workplace is I found this really inexpensive digital sign, which provided the ambient noise levels in decibels and the temperature and the humidity. And so I thought, "Good bang for the buck because I need to do both." So I set them up around the plant and then just manually tracked things against the outdoor temps or the meteorological data in my area and was able to start trending. So I was then able to forecast or approximate what the heat burden or heat index may be for my workers. And then management's like, "Wow, that's cool. How would you like to upgrade that system?" And then they got me 10 sensors that I could put around the plant wherever I wanted, that actually data logged it for me and allowed me to monitor it from my cell phone so that I could track and predict. And that was the game changer. That given what the temperature and humidity could be at any point during the day, I could estimate, well, one; when I should be shutting doors and windows, which is a scary thing when it's hot out, but you want to maintain whatever coolness or lower humidity that you have. And so I had to figure that out when would be the best time to do that? But secondarily; when do we need to be cautious or maybe just prepare ahead of time that there may be a chance that we have to send people home or take more breaks, whatever it might be. I think in the standard, what they should do is just like you have to monitor noise levels for the hearing conservation program, just like you should be monitoring airborne contaminants before you institute a respiratory protection program. They should have monitoring of temperature and humidity or wet bulb globe temp, whatever you want to use. And then estimate, given those conditions, what would be the best way to protect the workers?

Jill James:

So Todd, you mentioned, "We might have to send people home. We might have to make some changes." Before you get to making those decisions, you need to determine how hot and humid is too hot and humid. So do you want to talk about how you determined that? Because again, we don't have a lot to go on. We don't have a lot of that, "If it's this temperature and this humidity, then you must do X, Y, and Z." We have states who have laws like that. We have some guidance from NIOSH and other organizations. So how did you decide for your location, for anyone who's wondering, "When do I start doing some of this stuff?" How did you determine what your action levels were?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

I pulled charts from the NIOSH website and the CDC website, and then I did a basic literature search through the research journals I have access to. And I found a few, I'll say tables or figures that gave ranges. So it had axes, so it had the temperature on one side and the humidity on the other, and then the estimated heat index in between. And then what I did is I used all of the recorded data that I had taken from inside the plant and how I felt and how I saw other workers feeling. And I put everything together. And I started with a range that, here to here. And over time just by studying what's going on in the plant and other things I was reading, I came to a table in which I had temperature and humidity limits for... And I had three levels. I had caution, warning, danger, and I presented it to management. They had never seen anything like it. And I said, "It's based on the data I'm collecting here. It's based on multiple sources of research, NIOSH and CDC." But I said, "I believe this is a very fair but conservative in a way that we can protect workers because I don't want anybody going down on my watch." And they're like, "Sounds good. So what are we going to do?" So we came to an agreement management. We all came to an agreement that if things do hit this danger level, this is going to be the reaction. When things hit the warning level, this is going to be the reaction and when it's in the caution level, this is what we're going to do just to keep... Basically was get everybody down on the floor a little bit more often and make sure people are drinking water, make sure they have access to electrolytes, whether it's in Popsicle form or powder form to put in their water. That we make sure that, "Are we closing things and covering windows to prevent radiant heat from coming in." So it was a wide range, sort of a comprehensive approach to try and mitigate heat and humidity levels, but at the same time provide workers with the ability to take a break when they need it in an air-conditioned cafeteria or whatever. Access to cold water, access to ice, all that stuff. And then intense training and reminders.

Jill James:

And so you've talked about the education piece, you've talked about coming to an agreement, which we might use the term policy. Essentially you developed a policy to say, "Okay, here's..." Based on your research, "based on what we know here's the..." What did you say? The caution danger, and what was your third category?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

It was caution, warning, danger.

Jill James:

Caution, warning, danger. And then also the other piece that I believe you put into the mix was it depends on what kind of work activity people are doing. The law that I mentioned from Minnesota defines moderate work activity, light work activity, and heavy work activity, and then it defines it. Did you put that into your policy or your agreement that you had with leadership as well?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Yeah. So any industrial hygienist who's listening knows that we try to sample worst case scenario because then we are assured that by extrapolating those results, what might be safe. So I was able to narrow to two different areas that I used as my primary sources to find out that if those areas reached a warning or danger level, that if it's in the middle of the day or early in the day, that the rest of the plant will too. So let's be proactive. And again, I don't want it to sound like I was kind of guessing, but sometimes it's trial and error to see how things go. We did have two people. One person was a new worker. She started exhibiting the symptoms I taught her, and she took some time to sit in a cool area and cool down, and then she came back right away. Another one, the person was actually experiencing an anxiety attack. It just happened to be on a hot day, but we still got him the treatment he needed because we were so concerned about the heat stress. So interestingly enough, maybe this guy, maybe he wouldn't have done anything if we hadn't trained on heat stress. So that's another thing too, is that it made workers more aware of how they feel and to look out for each other and that supervisors should get out and talk to workers more. Which we could talk about the secondary benefits of all that too.

Jill James:

For sure. Okay, so let's switch over to one of your other degrees, engineering. So one of the first times you called me the summer and said, "Hey, I'm going to go into the plant tonight. It's getting really hot. I'm going to try a few things that I know and see if I can lower the temperature." And so for anyone who's listening, who's not a professional engineer, Todd, and most of us aren't. Where did you start? And maybe some things that the listeners can be like, "Oh, I didn't know that would work because hello, I'm not an engineer, but Todd is." Can you talk about some of the things that you did, that you tried, things that people should be paying attention to, and what ended up working?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

That's a great question. So coming into the summer season, I heard the manager saying, "Okay, everybody, we got to get ready, we need to put up fans." But what they were talking about is putting fans on the actual workers-

Jill James:

On the workers.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Just on the workers, so they were smaller fans.

Jill James:

Okay, got it.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Because airflow onto the person, it helps accelerate the evaporation of sweat. So that's the plan they had used previously, that's what they were going to use. But then they were using passive air turnover by opening up overhead doors in the evening. Actually, they kept them open all day and attempting to open some overhead windows that don't always work, and if it rains, you got to close them because the water comes in. And just two dedicated exhaust fans that I wasn't actually able to test. I don't know how efficient they were. And so just by walking around at different parts of the day, I could tell what areas were getting hot because there was heat producing equipment and which areas did not have a consistent air movement. And I don't mean by a small fan, I mean the migration of air from outdoor to exiting out the roof, that's where hot air wants to go. It wants to exit the roof, but if you have a plant where you don't have a consistent or macro air migration to the point of exit, then that's an area that's just going to be swirling in its own and it's just going to continue to heat up. Especially if you have heat producing equipment and you don't have anything to remove it. So I added that. I asked to order, I think my first round I got two, was it two or three big drum floor fans that could push, I believe 15 to 18,000 CFM? And that's a lot. That's a of push. And so I basically put them in the overhead doors, but then lowered the overhead door to minimize the additional space because what you want is for every cubic foot of air that's pulled into the fan and injected into the work environment to come from outside and not be leaking in from inside the building. And so I think I was starting to achieve that. And the more I placed those around, the more the workers said, "We already feel a difference." So now the small fans they have that was just basically circulating the warm air that they were working in was starting to circulate the air that I was cooling, and that's what made the difference. That and then I also created my own exhaust ventilation with a couple of fans and some duct work and some boxes and duct tape, thank you duct tape. And was able to actually vent some air compressors. And even blocked some other things that we're introducing heat. It's turning over air. It's actively or forcibly moving cooler air, at the right time of day, into the plant so it can force the hot air out through the top where it wants to go anyway.

Jill James:

So for some of us who haven't had an industrial ventilation course in 30 years, that'd be me, or maybe someone who has never had it. Talk for a second about the difference between blowing air out, blowing air in, the direction of airflow, as you get into your duct tape and cardboard story.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

So if you can localize where you're exhausting. I know some people like to use hoods. I like to use loose enclosures. I think they work better and you need to draw out more air than is being produced by that piece of equipment. And so that's where one of my designs was a little bit off because as the flexible duct work went around a corner, it added a pressure drop to the airflow, so therefore it wasn't as efficient. But... Okay, what was the question again? My brain just...

Jill James:

The difference between blowing air out and bringing air in and mistakes with that or how you effectively direct air?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Right. You can think of it as positive and negative pressure. Air flows away from positive towards negative. Whenever I see the weather reports of the hurricanes and they show the eye, I am like, "Oh, that's where it's being forced a certain way." So again, when we're talking about something like hot air, it wants to rise. And what you need to do is you need to get it to migrate to where it wants to go out. And I achieve that by adding air pressure to the building. And the air pressure to the building were the big drum fans that I put in the overhead doors that I lowered to force it, so now it was pressure. So you may think, "Oh, he's just pulling in cooler air." Well, it's a dual effect. I'm also making the exhaust fans that are up in the ceiling in one area of the plant more effective. And I wish I could have gotten up there with my volometer to test that and to show them, but I knew it was more effective just watching the temperature and the humidity gauges that I have throughout the plant, dropping at night when I positioned the fans in certain doors pointing at certain ways. And then just to let you know, there was an advance where I actually set up one of the big fans to pull some of the air from the hotter area. And that was one of the most effective things I think I built, just simply because there was a compressor there. There was big electric equipment, cabinets that were giving up heat. And what it did is it grabbed some of the cool air that was coming in adjacent to it and pulled it into that area. Effectively making that area more of a air turnover per hour than before when it was more of a static heating up and just mixing. So that was a really cool thing. Now, we did get some bids from some contractors to put in something more permanent. We're talking tens to a hundreds of thousands of dollars. These fans cost about 750 bucks a piece.

Jill James:

Well, talk about what you built with the cardboard and the duct tape and the flexible hose for a second.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

I built an enclosure over the exhaust port of an air compressor, and I did use my volometer to test that it was kicking out about 500 CFM of about 130 degree Fahrenheit air. That's just what the compressor was kicking out. So I enclosed it with a cardboard box, cut out a piece for the fan, and then ran duct work out a door into one of the overhead doors. That same door where I ran that duct is where I put in one of the big drum fans and then just filled it in with discarded cardboard. And so it had a very strong sort of sucking pull from that area to get it out. And really, it's been phenomenal. When I started out not doing anything, I was lucky if that area would dip down to 81 or 82 degrees Fahrenheit. After these changes we're dipping down to 75, 76 degrees. That is a big difference to start the day at 74, 75 versus 81 or 82.

Jill James:

Wonderful. So you mentioned the word volometer a few times, if that sounds like a new word. For some people who are listened, you want to talk about a volometer and also when you're purchasing a fan, what sort of CFM should we be looking for when we're doing things like this based on what you learned from your volometer?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

So a volometer, typically two different kinds. There's the propeller, so it looks like it has a fan blade in it, and then the air flowing across it, it measures the speed or estimates the speed. I got a hot wire nanometer, which the air velocity is then measured by the temperature change felt across a heated wire. And it is just a way to estimate linear velocity. And then you just have to know the cross-sectional area of the space. And then you can calculate volumetric flow such as the CFM, the cubic feet per minute. My volometer also had the ability to measure temperature. This was a very inexpensive purchase. I think it was only 50 or $60 from Amazon, so it's not a permanent fix, and it's going to run out of calibration probably after a year. But it was good enough to get me through the summer. So that's what I used. Oh, the fans. I shopped hard for those, and they go up in price the higher the CFM they move. And they had a few bigger fans were on the plant, but they were old, old design. The fins probably weren't kept up, they weren't cleaned out, so they weren't moving as much air. Here's what you want. You'd like to have so many air changes per hour, to move... That's the volume of air inside, moved outside. But when you're circulating things, it's not perfect. Nothing's ever laminar, it's always turbulent and you're guessing at it. But I wanted something that was 15,000 CFM or more. Because if you look at the square footage and you think of a 10 foot 20 foot ceiling, you could estimate how many times an hour you could turn over a particular floor ceiling volumetric space, given what that fan is capable of doing. And so there's a ventilation standard the OSHA has, and they want you to have six air changes per hour for a flammable liquid storage. That would be fantastic, but I was just hoping to get something around one or two per hour because I'm not trying to remove something that's hazardous. I'm just trying to move cooler air from outdoors, pushing it inside and then hoping the hot air inside would migrate and find its way out the highest part of the building.

Jill James:

So Todd, let's back up for... Thank you for all of that. And let's back up to just a building's regular ventilation system they already have. And if you live in a place where there's seasons, sometimes companies make changes to their ventilation based on the season with what they open, vent wise, close vent wise, what gets turned on, what stays on? All that kind of business. So if someone's thinking, "Oh man, I don't know if I'm at the level of taking out the cardboard and the duct tape and ripping apart a confined space kit to use the flexible hose to build the thing like Todd did. Maybe I just want to make some adjustments to what's existing." Where would they start when it starts getting hot?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

That's a really good question. And everybody who is a building manager should already know the standards, ASHRAE, which is the ventilation group, but I think it's more consensus. I also look at BOMA, which is the Building Management Group, and I just searched it really quick. And there's estimations of anywhere from, I've seen in here, four air changes per hour, five air changes per hour. When it hits summer and winter, you try to reduce the percent of outdoor air intake just to make sure that carbon dioxide levels are controlled or mitigated in some way, humidity as well. And again, depending on how much indoor, I should say percent outdoor area you're mixing in that system, you have to pay to have it conditioned. Whether it's heating, cooling, dehumidification or humidification, if your system has that. Which is why they tend to close that down or reduce it during summer and winter months. And then spring/fall, they can open them up more because they're not spending as much on the conditioning energy. And the other thing that's interesting is usually when they design those original building ventilation systems or HVAC system, it goes through several different owners and they start putting up walls and they start storing things. And so now the system that was really originally designed to try to provide a balanced turning over of air isn't doing it anymore. And in my consulting job or pre going back to school, when I would get a complaint, I would go in and start assessing, when were these walls or enclosures put in? And then you come to find out that what was supposed to be a duct that's supposed to just serve one diffuser is serving three or four. And it's like, "Well, now you're not moving the air you're supposed to." So what you have to do is you have to create a balance. And there are experts that you can hire that will go in and test the airflow at different places or the static pressure drop from different zones to other zones, and then they can redesign it, so it's more of a balanced delivery. Because that's what you want. You want there to be an optimal turning over of air in your rooms, in each room, so that one; carbon dioxide levels stay somewhat equal to what it is outside. But when you start talking like an industrial plant where you're producing airborne contaminants that need to be captured, if you can't capture them through a hood or an enclosure, you may have to figure out a more active way to get that stuff to release outdoors and not accumulate indoors.

Jill James:

Wonderful. So let's talk about human beings because after all of these things you're doing are for the human beings that have to work in the heat. And you've changed things with ventilation, you've educated people, you're monitoring the heat and the humidity. You've come up with essentially a policy on when you're going to take actions. What sort of things did you do for the health and comfort of the workers? Talk about that piece.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Okay, so that was the final thing I figured out. Especially when I found that even though I was utilizing this nighttime fan in the door technique pretty soon, that wasn't enough. And that's where I was trying to figure out when I could close doors, which workers were like, "Why are you closing the door? We need it open." I'm like, "Well, because it's just heating us at this point." But what I did is I decided if I can't cool the air, can I provide the workers with something cold on them that could help them keep their body cool? And what we decided is we'd use those cooling towels that have a wicking, so it provides additional cooling feel. In addition to that, I want to bring them coolers of ice water that they could dunk these rags into and put on their neck. And so I thought it's a really low cost, low risk thing to try. So on the first really hot day, they went and got me five coolers. I went and got the ice, filled it up with ice water, and I walked around with these cooling towels and it became kind of a joke. It was like I was the pope and I'd dunk it in there and I'd put it over their neck and I'd bless them. And they thought it was funny.

Jill James:

With cold water.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Yeah. And right away someone, "I don't know if I want it." I'm like, "Try it." And so an ice water soaked cooling towel, it feels so good, especially when it's really hot. And you could just see them shake like, "Oh, that feels amazing." I'm like, "Well, I'm going to keep this cooler here, so when you guys need to just dunk it in there." Of course you get these people sweating on the towels and you dunk it in pretty soon you just have ice-cold sweat. So what they did is they started bringing cups over and dumping it over the cloth, over a bucket. Just so you know, I don't want people to get grossed out. I didn't think of that right away. They're the one who came to me with the solution.

Jill James:

That's fantastic.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

But between that and I started walking around with a cooler of ice-cold water and it was handing it to them, I'm like, "Remember one per hour." Or "Do you guys want a popsicle?" I had the electrolyte pops. That meant so much to them that I would come around, check on them, make sure they're drinking, make sure they're doing their popsicles, reminding them what their symptoms are. "If you're not feeling well, you got to go report it. We got to get you cooled down." I got a lot of props, a lot of street cred as the kids say, the youth. And so what I did, I started dragging out the managers to do it with me. And then they started getting the street cred. And so it became something where I'm just trying to keep them cool, because that's my job. But it became an exercise of employee engagement is showing management cares. And anybody who works in the safety field knows that that is worth its weight in platinum. And so that's what I started doing. And that also had workers sharing more things with me beyond heat. And that's what I needed to then reprioritize what I'm working on when I'm not working on the heat and cooling. So the exercise became very valuable, well beyond keeping them resistant to heat-related illness. And I got to know them too and joke around with them. And everybody noticed that, and they'd say, "A higher tide lifts all boats." That's what it kind of felt like. It put everybody in a better mood, whereas it could have gone the other way really bad if people are just sweating and dropping. All of a sudden nobody wants to work there. This was, "Hey, this isn't too bad and I'll take a break and I'll work." And the production numbers sure could have been better, but overall I think we're in a better place than if we had done nothing. And so star on my chest, Todd wins.

Jill James:

And I know that you're saying that as a complete joke because you're not a-

Dr. Todd Loushine:

I'm saying that as a joke, yes.

Jill James:

... ego maniac for certain. But you did an excellent job humaning, and the fact that you brought the managers alongside you to model what that could look like and how they could have that interaction from long after you're gone is wonderful. So Todd, you talked about production numbers, so that'd be another thing. You had a pretty grand experiment this summer, and maybe some of the people are listening are like, "I did a grand experiment like that too." And I know that you said you came up with all of these systems essentially. And now you have an idea of how would you measure production in a time of stress like this? What kind of things are you thinking about in your mind that people might be thinking about for themselves right now?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

That's an excellent question. And that's actually the article that I want to write and publish, that the operations people, and I sit in two meetings per day during the week, they know how many products they're producing, how many hours workers are at the machine, how many hours they're not because a machine is down, or being repaired, or that a product was inspected [inaudible 00:50:34] to be, "Okay, this lot doesn't meet our quality standards, so we need to see what we can do." They have all that. And so what I'm going to do is compare all of their production numbers against the extremely hot versus the no worry of heat at all periods throughout the summer. And I'll come up with a comparison of, "These were the hot days, these were not the hot days." Did the cost to produce the same number of widgets change between those two? What's the magnitude of that? Is it justified to purchase a million dollar cooling system? Or is it acceptable to keep people at the work environment but have them work only 30 minutes an hour? So there's going to be a cutoff point, and that's what I need to determine. I just haven't collected the data for that yet, but when I do, I'm going to publish it. And then everybody can compare it to their own work environments to figure out, if again, "Should we be investing $1 million, $2 million into air conditioning or HVAC equipment? Would we be able to require that investment given an expectation on maximum efficiency of manufacturing?" So that's what I'm working on, but I don't have the answer yet.

Jill James:

That's beautiful. I hope you do that. I have a feeling that people are going to be interested in reading that. To get back to engineering for just a bit and the things that you tried, two questions for you. You mentioned one data point of you were able to lower the temperature, especially around that compressor room by a certain number of degrees. What other decreases did you see overall in the plant, temperature-wise overall, or did that really just depend on the day and what was happening outside?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Yeah, I was very dependent on the meteorological conditions. Even an overnight breeze from a certain direction, I could achieve maybe double-digit cooling. And of course, during nighttime hours, when the temperature goes down, the humidity goes up. But when you have heat producing equipment in the plant that happens to remove humidity. So it was a balance.

Jill James:

Interesting, okay.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

It was really only during the extreme heat warning days did I not have the ability to keep the humidity levels to a comfortable level. They did get into the seventies and eighties, and the lesson learned after all of that was, "Next summer when you have potentially weather in the nineties and humidity in the upper seventies into the eighties, you're going to have to prepare. Because you're going to go through the same thing we went through. I won't be here, so you got to decide how you want to run this." And hopefully my numbers will shell out as far as, is it more economical to shut everything down and just try to maintain a cool temperature in the plant with everything shut up and everybody stays home and they come in when it cools off, or are we going to battle it, or are they going to battle it. Again, it's not going to be my responsibility a year from now. But I will give them everything they need as far as what is the best investment for money to do that stuff. But of course, no matter what they do, they need to make sure they're demonstrating to the workers, "Hey, we're doing this for you."

Jill James:

And if someone listening wants to engage with an engineer to do some of the things that you did or tried, you mentioned one resource would be HVAC companies who can do some assessments, maybe make some changes. If they want to go a little bit further than that, maybe they have an engineering team or they want to reach out to someone else. What sort of qualifications or information would that person need to be able to-

Dr. Todd Loushine:

The PE license. A PE license.

Jill James:

Professional engineer.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

A professional engineer is designated for a particular discipline in which you did your studies. My studies when I received or earned my license was chemical engineering with a focus on environmental engineering. So I took a wide range of coursework for my emphasis in dispersion modeling in underwater systems, air pollution control, epidemiological hazardous waste. So I had a very wide range. And of course I took a ventilation course, and I just have always been fascinated by it. It's one of those things that interests me. I practice it on my own home. But they would want someone who's a PE who has the experience with different forms of ventilation design. And I say that because the company I work for, they do have contractors they work with a lot who have actually designed some of the exhaust systems that are not functioning well. And as soon as the first day I walked in, I'm like, "That's not effective, and I can smell it way over here. So obviously it's not working." And you definitely need someone who has the PE and the background to design a new system, but you also probably want someone who maybe has their CIH in order to use a volometer to test the effectiveness of current exhaust systems or pressure differentials, things like that.

Jill James:

Well, you certainly worked through every piece of the hierarchy of controls this summer with this particular-

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Yes, I did. A couple of sleepless nights there where I was doing temperature and humidity and heat load trending and forecasting at two and three in the morning so that I could call my boss and let her know what I thought things were going to be at six in the morning, which is when our first shift starts. So this summer couldn't get over soon enough. But again, I am looking forward to reviewing and comparing my data against the production data. And maybe I can help others make the decision on what to do, because we really made a minimal investment financially. And I think we caught out a lot more than what we had expected. But I wouldn't know if other people could achieve that same thing. It was a bit of the old Todd luck, I think.

Jill James:

So short of having a crystal ball to know what OSHAs going to do and are they going to promulgate a regulation that might give us some greater guidance, is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience or resources that you can think of that you think people might be able to-

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Well, I'll just review the four that I had mentioned. As far as getting data as how heat stress affects the body and getting recommendations for what to do to mitigate those factors, NIOSH and CDC, top of the line there. OSHA has a lot of great information, a lot of similar things that what CDC and NIOSH have. Now, if you want to look at the ventilation experts, ASHRAE is the society that really sets the standards on things. And then you can also look to BOMA, which is the Building Management Group. They also have a lot of guidance documents on how to assess the performance of your HVAC system and also when things should be tweaked. So that and actually collecting data. And I'm almost positive that's how I was successful. That's how I gained management support for my recommendations. I had the data, I knew I could estimate, and I was testing myself on modeling of temperature and humidity and heat index in the plant. And then I compared it to the research and said, "Under these conditions, this is what we're going to be most concerned, but this is what we're going to do to challenge it, to try to mitigate it." And I could report to them, "At this time of day, this is what the temperature was, this is when it broke the threshold, it's going to continue to break a certain threshold. As we go through today I suspect by 11 o'clock it's going to reach a certain thing." So we were making decision making before things got bad. And I think that is probably the most difficult thing, even when I'm saying, "Yeah, I think this is what we need to do." And there was some pushback. I'm just like, "Uh-oh. Did I just overstep my expertise?" But it was the right thing to do. It all worked out. The estimations, the forecasting, the modeling I was doing, it all came to fruition. I was pretty close on everything I was guessing at and... No, not guessing, estimating, and we did the right thing. And I hope that when I see the actual language of the standard that everything that I did this summer would still meet what they're asking other companies to do.

Jill James:

And you didn't lose anyone on your watch. When you're listening to this episode, if you did something similar to what Todd did, let us know. You can certainly talk to us over LinkedIn when we share the episode. Let us know how things went for you this summer. What sort of things did you discover? What did you learn? And the heat isn't over for many parts of the country. You and I, Todd, have the great benefit of having winter coming soon where workers will be dealing with a different extreme. But for those of you who are still in the midst of it, let us know what's working for you. And don't forget about the OSHAs request to submit for comment on the proposed regulation. So the industries that they're specifically asking to comment and read the text and comment is the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry, building and material suppliers, commercial kitchens, construction and telecommunications and utilities, dry cleaners, Todd mentioned those earlier. And commercial laundry, fire protection, landscaping, facility support maintenance and repair, manufacturing, material handling, transportation and warehousing, oil and gas, recreation and amusement, and waste management. All of that makes sense. So if you're working in support of any of those industries, check out the ways that you can comment on the regulation at regulations.gov. Todd, final thoughts before we close this out?

Dr. Todd Loushine:

I just want to go back to the original thing I talked about that it's not just about an individual's inability to cope or adapt to... it's their environment to keep their body regulated, temperature wise. It's what it does to your brain. And that's what I experienced when I went through a heat related illness event that I could see how it would cause people to accidentally get them self exposed to something else secondary to heat. Make a decision that seems a little bit off, to act erratic. And so just keep that in mind. It's not just the heat related illness, it's the state it puts the individuals in that puts them at a higher risk or propensity to possibly get injured. So we have to keep all that in mind.

Jill James:

From other things. Well, my friend, thank you so much for coming on the podcast again, appreciate your wisdom as always.

Dr. Todd Loushine:

Thank you. It was very cool.

Jill James:

Well, I thought it was hot. This has been a heated conversation, Todd. Oh, wonderful. All right. Thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good, making sure your workers and those we influence know that our profession caress deeply about human wellbeing, which is the core of our practice. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app or any other podcast player you'd like. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more health and safety professionals like Todd and I. Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer, and until next time, thanks for listening.