Protect Yourself: A New HSE Guide to Safe Stone Worktop Installation & Dust Control

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) introduces new guidelines and develops regulations for stone worktop installers, educating employers and employees on stone dust protection and health monitoring for potential hazards.

Dust from natural, artificial, or engineered stone can cause serious illness and occupational asthma, especially in industries involving chemicals and hazardous materials like respirable crystalline silica (RCS). Found in rocks, sands, clays, and concrete.

Inhaling RCS can cause life-threatening effects like occupational asthma and silicosis, especially in stone worktop manufacturers and fitters.

Therefore, employers must manage dust exposure hazards to prevent lung conditions like COPD, lung cancer, and silicosis.

How to Prevent Dust Exposure When Installing Stone Worktops:

To prepare and prevent potentially life-altering outcomes, you need and must take the following actions to safeguard both yourself and others:

Step 1: Ensure you provide appropriate training and information:

It is your employer’s responsibility to ensure that all workers understand safe stone worktop installation procedures. While working with stone, they must receive professional training, understanding the RCS health risks, how they could be exposed to it, and how to lower those risks.

Self-employed individuals are subject to the same legal obligations as employers.

Step 2: Pre-Site Dust Control:

Prior to arriving at the site, it is important to minimise the amount of dust generated on the construction site before you arrive. Cut, shape, or polish as much as you can in a workspace that is equipped appropriately before going to the installation site.

Before arriving on site, you should:

• Cut out sink and tap holes.
• Check the works specification to make sure any other optional aspects, like cutting drainage grooves, are done off-site.
• Clean dust-off worktops before transporting them – use wet cleaning or a M-class vacuum.
• Use accurate measurements for fabrication by getting specifications from contractors or customers or use templates or infrared measuring devices.

Step 3: Safety Checks Before Stone Worktop:

Before beginning to install a stone worktop, preparation is crucial. It is recommended that you make the following checks:

• That any other installers are also trained to work with stone
• The equipment before you use it – ensure filters in on-tool extraction, vacuums, and respiratory protective equipment (RPE) have been changed as necessary, and any water suppression system can deliver an adequate water flow.
• That everyone knows how to report any health and safety issues or concerns when they are on site

Step 4: How do I reduce risks during installation?

To decrease the risk of exposure to hazardous dust, you must ensure you have dust control equipment for stone worktops on-site. It is important to carry out minor modifications that can only be done on site in a well-ventilated, segregated area with restricted access (ideally outdoors) using appropriate measures to control the risk.

You can reduce risks by:

• Using water suppression or on-tool extraction with a shroud and dust collector attached to an M-class vacuum.
• Shutting down heating systems with blowers or air-conditioning units – these can resuspend settled dust and increase airborne concentrations.
• Wearing a face mask (RPE) with an APF of 20 can reduce the amount of dust you breathe in by a factor of 20.

Step 5: How do I appropriately plan the clean-up process?

There are still risks of exposure to harmful dust for you and others unless you clean up appropriately.

You should:

• Clean up immediately using wet methods – use a low-pressure water hose or an M-class vacuum.
• Continue to wear a face mask (RPE) while cleaning.
• Discard all stone waste materials (wet slurry and captured dust) promptly and without exposing anyone to dust.
• Avoid transferring dust between areas by keeping clothes and personal protective equipment (PPE) clean, for example, vacuum coveralls before leaving a dusty area.
• Avoid dry sweeping dust and debris or do anything that makes the dust go airborne.
• Do not use dry brushing or compressed air to clean dust-off work clothing.
• Get rid of disposable clothing or RPE once it has been used on a shift.

What are the legal requirements for an employer?

Employers must assess and control the legal requirements for silica dust control under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) (as amended). They must provide appropriate information and training to workers.

It is your responsibility as a self-employed individual to ensure that no one is exposed to dust, just like you would if you were an employer.

Frequently asked questions:

What impact can work with stone dust have on your health?              

The inhalation of RCS poses significant health risks to stone worktop manufacturers and fitters. Such as:

• Silicosis: RCS scarring causes lung function loss, shortness of breath, and acute silicosis, a rare life-threatening complication, increasing the risk of tuberculosis, kidney disease, and arthritis in workers.
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: COPD is a long-term illness that develops gradually over several years, leaving the lungs permanently damaged, making it difficult to breathe.
• Occupational Asthma: Dust generated during stone cutting, grinding, and other processes can irritate the airways and cause or exacerbate asthma symptoms in susceptible individuals.
• High-risk occupations: Industries such as quarrying, slate works, foundries, potteries, stone working, construction, worktop manufacturers, and industries using silica flour for manufacturing goods.

When is health surveillance required?

Health surveillance is a risk-based system for early identification of work-related health issues, integrating results into risk management systems, and ensuring workers’ health is protected.

Health surveillance silica guidelines UK must be considered for workers who are involved in high-risk occupations like construction, foundry work, brick and tile work, ceramics, slate, manufacturing, worktop manufacturers, quarries, and stonework require health surveillance for silicosis, especially when workers are regularly exposed to RCS dust.

Health surveillance for silicosis may be appropriate in various situations, such as:

• Where there have been previous cases of work-related ill-health in the workplace
• Where there is a reliance on respiratory protective equipment (RPE) as an exposure control measure for RCS; or
• Where there is evidence of work-related ill-health in the industry.

What a suitable health surveillance scheme should look like:

• An occupational health professional, such as a doctor or nurse, will ensure the health risks in your business are effectively managed.
• Assess workers’ respiratory health: Assess workers’ respiratory health before exposure, or within six weeks of exposure if not already, to establish a baseline.
• Ongoing assessments: Occupational health professionals should help advise regular ongoing assessments at an appropriate frequency.
• Health surveillance: Health surveillance involves questionnaires, lung function testing, and chest x-rays for occupational health professionals to identify risk assessment needs, review exposure controls, and move workers to alternative roles.
• Risk management system: Implementing a risk management system that allows workers to report symptoms, investigate concerns, and consider sick leave data can effectively identify silica-related disease cases and work practices issues.
• Workers’ health record: Maintaining a health record for each worker under health surveillance is crucial, and it is recommended to encourage them to keep copies of their results in case of job changes. They should be kept securely for at least 40 years from the date of the last entry.

Health records include:

• the worker’s name and address.
• National Insurance Number.
• Products or process(es) they work on.
• Date exposure started and its frequency and duration.
• What personal protective equipment (PPE) is used
• The results of any health surveillance.

Further information:

Health surveillance for those exposed to respirable crystalline silica (RCS) Supplementary guidance for occupational health professionals.

Accidents at work claims Oakwood Solicitors.

HSE Control of exposure to silica dust.

Installing stone worktops: protect against harmful natural or artificial stone dust.

WHAT TO DO NEXT

If you have experienced inadequate stone dust protection and are experiencing significant health impacts from exposure. Get in touch today for a no-obligation consultation. Choose one of the methods on the right-hand side of this page or call us on 0113 200 9720 to find out how we can help you.