Safety

5 min read

Your Safety

Danger

Since 2000, an average of 439 workers die each year in California as a result of fatal occupational injuries.

Being in the field, and especially in existing buildings in various states of repair/disrepair, as an energy engineer exposes you to many occupational hazards. It’s important that you receive training and personal protective equipment from your employer to perform your work safely - especially at a customer’s facility.

Commercial Pressure & The “Get It Done” Trap

Energy engineers frequently encounter “blind” site visits—RFP job walks or preliminary audits where site conditions are unknown until you arrive. You may find yourself standing at the base of a roof access point with the wrong ladder, or no ladder at all, facing a critical decision.

This is where Commercial Pressure (often called Production Pressure) creates a dangerous conflict.

The internal narrative sounds like this: “If I don’t get the nameplate data on these HVAC units today, our proposal will be inaccurate, we might lose the project, or I’ll blow the project budget coming back tomorrow.”

This is a Goal Conflict: The goal of Safety is directly competing with the goal of Productivity. When you choose to use an unsafe ladder or access a hazardous area to “save the project,” you are normalizing risk.

For the Engineer:

  • The “One-Time” Fallacy: Thinking “I’ll break the rules but just be careful” is the root cause of most industrial accidents. Gravity does not care about your deadline.
  • Data Gaps are Manageable: A missing nameplate is an administrative hurdle. A fall is a life-altering event.
  • Professional Duty: Your primary obligation as an engineer is the safety of the public and yourself.

For the Employer & Manager:

  • Constructive Knowledge: If you send an engineer to a site without verifying safe access or providing budget for contingencies, you are implicitly authorizing unsafe behavior.
  • Liability vs. Revenue: The cost of a Return on Investment (ROI) calculation missing a data point is zero. The cost of a workers’ comp claim, OSHA violation, or lawsuit due to negligence dwarfs the potential profit of the audit or project.
  • Empowerment: Explicitly tell your team: “Come back with a data gap rather than an injury.”

==If you cannot access equipment safely during a one-time visit, do not compromise.== Use these professional alternatives to handle the data gap:

  1. ==State the Assumption: In your report or proposal, clearly state: “Roof access was not safe at time of inspection. HVAC efficiency is estimated based on age/condition. Verification required prior to final design.”==
  2. Leverage the Facility Staff: Ask the site facility manager to take a photo of the nameplate for you later. They often have the correct access tools or lifts that you do not.
  3. Digital Tools: Use satellite imagery (Google Earth) to estimate unit tonnage based on physical dimensions.
  4. Defer the Work: If the data is truly critical, the project schedule must absorb the time required to rent a lift or proper ladder.

Important

Never risk your physical safety for a project.

Resources

Fall Hazards

  • On Monday April 6, 2009, at approximately 2:00 p.m., a 46-year-old electrical worker died when he fell through a skylight approximately 40 feet to the ground below. He was installing solar panels on the roof of a warehouse when the incident occurred. See incident report: 09CA003.pdf
  • On Wednesday, July 27, 2016, at approximately 2:30 p.m., a 33-year-old male HVAC contractor died when he fell approximately 20 feet through a skylight while working alone on an adjacent rooftop AC unit. See incident report: 16CA005.pdf
  • On December 29, 2017, at approximately 12:00 p.m., a 59-year-old male solar company owner died when he fell approximately 40 feet through a skylight while working on the roof of a warehouse. See incident report: 17CA005.pdf

Energy engineers are frequently climbing ladders to inventory rooftop HVAC equipment, evaluating roof conditions for solar PV and building envelope upgrades, or using “A Frame” ladders to identify lighting systems.

Electrical Hazards

  • On August 22, 2006, at approximately 3:30 p.m., a 43-year-old electrician died when he was electrocuted while repairing a lighting circuit that had been damaged by a contractor doing building renovations. See incident report: cdc_166234_DS1.pdf

San Diego Incidents

2024 Battery Fire

A fire inside a San Diego Gas & Electric battery storage facility in Escondido on Thursday ignited lithium-ion batteries in a storage container and prompted the evacuation of about 500 businesses.

![Your team deserves a work platform they’ll actually love]

Sources:

2023 Legionella Death

  • Dr. Michael J. Buono was a professor at SDSU for more than 40 years in the Exercise and Nutritional Sciences program. He passed away Saturday, March 4th, 2023 from Legionella pneumonia (Legionnaires’ disease).
  • SDSU closed the building(s) to perform testing and found Legionella pneumophila, the bacteria that causes the disease, in three samples collected along a water line in an annex adjacent to the university’s Exercise and Nutritional Sciences building.

This is important for energy engineers to be aware for at least two reasons:

  • One outcome of deferred maintenance is often a lack of chemical treatment in Cooling Towers and Condenser Water Systems. Reducing or eliminating chemical treatment as a cost cutting measure can create conditions where Legionella can flourish.
  • When energy engineers conduct energy audits, they often encounter cooling towers and could easily breathe in mist from the tower(s).

Sources:

Technical Considerations

  • Code Compliance
  • Data Acquisition and logging
  • Arc flash protection
  • Duct smoke detectors
  • Boiler emergency shutoff and combustion air
  • (Chiller) refrigerant leak detection

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