Location: Newcastle

Equipment Hired: Dust Suppression Cannon V12

Case Overview

Building demolition sites often produce large amounts of silica dust when bricks, mortar, concrete and other building materials that crystalline silica dust are demolished.

Australian workplace requirements are becoming increasingly stringent concerning acceptable levels of silica dust exposure. As a result, it’s important to implement adequate control measures to effectively manage the levels of silica dust at a demolition site for the workers and anyone else at risk of inhalation.

At this particular demolition site in Newcastle, excessive amounts of silica dust were being released into the air in a built up area which posed a risk to surrounding neighbours. In this instance, the client required specific dust control measures to limit exposure to silica dust at a large site while minimising the impact and noise to those nearby. 

Challenge

Our client was in need of a dust control measure that would help to limit silica dust exposure to the surrounding buildings and residents neighbouring the demolition site.

During the demolition process, large amounts of dust were created in a densely populated area. Implementing dust control measures that minimise exposure to silica dust is an essential part of the demolition process. With the incoming regulatory changes to the workplace exposure standard for respiratory crystalline silica (silica dust) decreasing to 0.05mg/㎥, it’s becoming increasingly important to protect air quality at construction sites.

As this demolition site was located in a built up area, it was important to not only implement control measures to mitigate the levels of silica dust to the site workers and surrounding neighbours, but do so in a way that would impose the least amount of impact to the nearby buildings and residents. Keeping construction noise levels to a minimum was a priority in this instance.

Solution

In order to limit the volume of dust released as a result of the building demolition, Control Hire suggested the use of the Dust Suppression Cannon V12. The V12 unit was ideal for this project as it’s incredibly quiet, emitting just 60 decibels (A) within a 20-metre radius making it the optimal suppression solution in a densely populated area.

This unit is compact and allows for easy transportation to and around the site. Its small size also allows it to be mounted on a variety of bodies, whether they’re stationary or mobile.

The cannon has two speeds that allow it to spray fine water at a distance of 25-65 metres. The volume of water can be managed remotely thanks to the advanced valve technology used.

Outcome

The Dust Suppression Cannon V12 was successfully deployed at our client’s demolition site. Not only was it able to reduce the volume of dust released into the air on site during the demolition process, but disturbance to neighbours was kept to a minimum throughout the duration of the project.