Do you think that folks will install it on site without cutting it?
Holes on the other hand tend to be done in the field. But, people don't wear PPE even though it's simple and easy to do.
Not only is it stupidly messy, it's less precise, dangerous, and often the crews are too careless to protect the inside of the cabinet boxes (where the slug of stone that's being cut from the top will drop and bounce around).
And even if something is off, the drywall should be gouged to make the slab fit, rather than stone being cut onsite.
I give up. Everything is screwed.
Your job is temporary, but please wear a respirator. :-)
Do everyone a favor and call OSHA on your last day. Nothing about this sounds "okay".
I’ve never seen someone cut a countertop on site. They do it in a shop. (Why didn’t Australia instead ban all countertop cutting in shops that doesn’t use dustless tools?)
Hmm, I just looked it up. Home Depot sells the tool for under $30.
I would NOT recommend this to anyone though. At the time, the turn time and expense of having the counter removed, altered at a proper shop, redelivered and installed was prohibitively expensive.
This is in contrast to cutting dry, which causes all the swarf to fly into the air.
So the exposure isn’t zero, but it’s low. It would be interesting to see if it registers on a particle counter (Plantower, etc).
are you saying that wearing the PPE is simple and easy to do, or did you mean they don't wear PPE because the job is so simple and easy to do?
You see it in factories too, where workers will disable safety devices just to save them a tiny amount of movement.
My 8yo son came out to see what was going on, looked at the workers doing the cut without masks, and said "silicosis ain't no joke" and went back inside. I've taught him well.
So not everything he says is wisdom beyond his years...
Maybe we should mandate people wear PPE, but if they decide to flaunt the rules and risk their health for no reason, I just don't really feel all that sympathetic.
"Safe Work found that while silicosis cases could emerge in several industries, the numbers were "disproportionate" among engineered stone workers. Engineered stone workers also suffered a faster disease progression and were more likely to die from it, the report said."
A mandate isn't really necessary. Everyone involved has every incentive to cut stone in a shop rather than in the field.
The problem is people don't wear PPE. Guess what? Everyone already has a mandate to wear PPE.
Sometimes you can't fix stupid.