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Gas Detectors Advise Calibration Is Essential For A Safe Gas Protection System

Tuesday 24 February 2015, 5:11PM

By Beckie Wright

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The friendly but meticulous team at Gas Detectors advise that all gas protection systems need a health check on an ongoing basis as a gas detector that is overdue for calibration is less likely to give accurate readings. It is also less likely to alarm at the appropriate time. Keeping the instrument calibration up to date provides confidence in its readings and its overall performance. Team members are more likely to believe the readings and react appropriately to the warnings that the gas monitors provide rather than simply discount them as ‘false alarms’.

Gas Detectors reveal that ninety-six percent of all on-the-job injuries are caused by at-risk acts, according to DuPont Safety Resources. The other four percent of injuries are caused by at-risk conditions in the workplace. Informed decisions strengthen the safety culture in an organisation and will save lives; uninformed decisions create more unsafe behaviours and conditions. Managing the data in a gas detection programme will position people to make more informed decisions.

The safety professional must monitor three elements of their gas detection programme at all times, which are, ‘do the gas detectors work properly? Are they being used correctly and what gas hazards are team members being exposed to?’ Data pertaining to these three key areas held within the gas monitoring instruments paints a picture of each gas detection programme and safety culture. A portable gas detector is a critical piece of equipment meant to save lives. If teams are going to use it with confidence, they must know that it is in proper working condition.

As the Gas Detectors team say, the most important elements of gas detector maintenance are function (“bump”) testing and calibration. The processes are often thought to be too costly and too burdensome to perform on a regular basis. However, there are systems available that fully automate and document these functions, reducing the cost to the team. These systems also provide the data which is critical to assessing the overall health of the programme.

Bump testing is the only way to be certain that a portable gas detector will respond properly when it encounters a life-threatening gas condition is to test it with a known concentration of the target gas before it is going to be used. In an organisation with a weak safety culture or poor processes, team members might not use their gas detectors correctly. They might not use them at all. Even with the highest skill levels, years of experience and the best of intentions, team members will be at risk if they are not supported by safety-conscious management working to improve the culture.
For more information please go to http://www.gasdetectors.co.nz .