816 Confined Space Safety in Construction

Means, Procedures, and Practices

The employer must develop and implement the means, procedures, and practices in the PSP that, as a minimum, do the following:

• specify acceptable entry conditions;
• provide each authorized entrant or that employee's authorized representative with the opportunity to observe any monitoring or testing of permit spaces;
• isolate the permit space and physical hazard(s) within the space;
• use purging, inerting, flushing, or ventilating the permit space as necessary to eliminate or control atmospheric hazards.

• When unable to reduce the atmosphere below 10 percent of the Lower Flammability Limit (LFL), only enter if the following three conditions are met:
• the employer inerts the space so as to render the entire atmosphere in the space non-combustible,
• employees use PPE to address any other atmospheric hazards (such as oxygen deficiency), and
• the employer eliminates or isolates all physical hazards in the space.
• determine that, in the event the ventilation system stops working, the monitoring procedures will detect an increase in atmospheric hazard levels in sufficient time for the entrants to safely exit the permit space;
• provide pedestrian, vehicle, or other barriers as necessary to protect entrants from external hazards;

• ensure that employees are not allowed to enter into, or remain in, a permit space with a hazardous atmosphere unless the employer can demonstrate that personal protective equipment (PPE) will provide effective protection for each employee in the permit space and provides the appropriate PPE to each employee; and
• Eliminate any conditions (for example, high pressure) that could make it unsafe to remove an entrance cover.

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