Working near photocopiers

[enjay]

A concern has been raised here about the big reprographics photocopiers and the appropriate working environment. I'm struggling to find specific guidance other than "well ventilated room", but if anyone has anything they can point me at regarding specific measures and provisions, I'd be grateful. Alternatively, anything which definitively says good ventilation is sufficient would be helpful, so we can say we've looked into it and what we're doing is adequate.

[Steve21]

Most the old regulations were removed in terms of specific "amounts" as lots of those were BECTA/IOSH style ones. But individual manufacturers still have their own recommendations.

 

Is there a specific scenario you're referring to? As it depends on the setup, for example if there is no ventilation to the room you need to use mechanical etc. Even the age/model of photocopiers affects things depending on what filters etc they run and generally it's down to your own workplace risk assessments to look at.

 

For example Xerox recommendations:

This procedure is suitable for many conventional office settings. The minimum recommended exhaust rate for copy and printing rooms is 0.5 cfm/ft2 (cubic feet per minute per square foot of floor space) or 2.5 liters per second per square meter of floor space.

This must be replaced with an equal volume of fresh, outside air or adequately filtered, recirculated air delivered with adequate mixing.

 

For office buildings, a minimum of 10% outside air is generally mixed with recirculated air. This is a method of providing enough clean air to the space to be confident that emissions will be diluted to acceptable levels

 

 

------------

 

Some customers are more comfortable measuring ventilation in a room by air changes per hour (ACH). The ventilation rate of 0.5 cfm/ft2 works out to (30 ÷ Ceiling Height) air changes per hour. The illustration on the next page shows the recommended hourly air changes for several typical room ceiling heights. For the average office or print room with 8 foot ceilings and one printer, approximately 4 ACH is recommended. Additional air exchange may be necessary when multiple printers are installed in the same room. This could vary on a case-by-case basis; however, typically an increase to 5-6 air changes per hour should be adequate to maintain acceptable indoor air quality.

 

Steve

[Aprice]

There's some guidance here:

https://consult.education.gov.uk/capital/bb101-school-design-iaq-comfort-and-ventilation/supporting_documents/DfE%20Ventilation%20guide%20consultation%20draft%2029%2006%202016.pdf

 

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Air extraction rate of 20 L/s per machine. + additional if an operator is in the room.

[enjay]

There's a Vent-Axia extraction unit in the room. The machines are only a few years old and get serviced during every school holiday. Concern has been raised about proximity to the machines, as we're relocating reprographics to a smaller room, but staff will not be sat right by them or in line with the machines' exhaust vents. One of the sources of this concern is the photocopier company's repair engineer who said "that room is too small"; he also told me a 4-year-old machine is "really old" so I am inclined to ignore him, but the remark is now out there, so we need to formally respond to it.

[Pottsey]

A concern has been raised here about the big reprographics photocopiers and the appropriate working environment. I'm struggling to find specific guidance other than "well ventilated room", but if anyone has anything they can point me at regarding specific measures and provisions, I'd be grateful. Alternatively, anything which definitively says good ventilation is sufficient would be helpful, so we can say we've looked into it and what we're doing is adequate.

Sorry I don't have anything official but I can say having worked in rooms without enough ventilation with photocopiers it matters. The problem isn't the every so often small copy. Its when long runs are going. Things like multiple copies of practice exams papers. Without proper ventilation staff will get headaches, light headiness and other problems. If you can smell fumes or that sweet smell the units give off in long runs you are well past the point of the air being bad.

 

Being directly away from the vents or the machine isn't enough. Without ventilation the photocopiers fumes will build up over the entire room and effect the people working in there.

 

EDIT: As for the 4 year old I am inclined to agree with him. Ideally replace them every 3 to 5 years. (usage depending). We used to do longer contracts but reduced them down so the units are refreshed more often. Which reduced overall call outs and problems. For photocopiers that work daily 5 years is very old.

Edited July 2, 2024 by Pottsey

[enjay]

There's some guidance here:

https://consult.education.gov.uk/capital/bb101-school-design-iaq-comfort-and-ventilation/supporting_documents/DfE%20Ventilation%20guide%20consultation%20draft%2029%2006%202016.pdf

 

Top of Page 27

 

Air extraction rate of 20 L/s per machine. + additional if an operator is in the room.

 

Thanks. DfE guidance too, which helps. That seemingly only applies of the machine is in use for more than 50% of the time, so now I need to get a stopwatch out!

[enjay]

Being directly away from the vents or the machine isn't enough. Without ventilation the photocopiers fumes will build up over the entire room and effect the people working in there.

 

Agreed. We're trying to ascertain what level of ventilation is necessary, and before we move the staff into the room. Lots of pages saying "sufficient" or "adequate" ventilation, but very little actual definition of those terms - other than the DfE article someone has just shared, but I can't even find anything to suggest where DfE got their number from!

[Pottsey]

Agreed. We're trying to ascertain what level of ventilation is necessary, and before we move the staff into the room. Lots of pages saying "sufficient" or "adequate" ventilation, but very little actual definition of those terms - other than the DfE article someone has just shared, but I can't even find anything to suggest where DfE got their number from!

You might have to do this the hard way and get some sort of Ozone detector in the room and monitor the results before the staff move in.

[PotNoodleTech]

Really it depends if there are staff members expected to be in that room permanently as in that is their office. If so then those noise and air quality come right into play.

 

If on the other hand like my repro room - reprographics staff only go in there for an hour here or there just to do copying, then the room is fine with some air ventilation and likely no ear defenders needed.

 

I think each room with each batch of equipment and each staff arrangements will be different

[enjay]

I think each room with each batch of equipment and each staff arrangements will be different

 

It looks that way. I was hoping for "desks must be more than X centimetres away from the machine" or a definition of "well ventilated", but that doesn't seem to exist, other than that one DfE guideline from 2016. Noise looks like it is going to be the bigger problem, especially with the extractor fan.

 

The room won't be someone's permanent office, but some print jobs do require you to pretty much stand over the machine while they run.

Edited July 2, 2024 by enjay

[mavhc]

Ozone monitor from $200 https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/criteria-pollutants/summary-gas

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) sets an eight-hour limit at 100 μg/m³ (0.1 mg/m³)

 

Current OSHA regulations set an eight-hour time-weighted average permissible exposure limit (PEL-TWA) of 0.1 ppm (0.2 mg/m³). NIOSH sets a ten-hour recommended exposure limit ceiling (REL-C) at the same value, 0.1 ppm (0.2 mg/m³). These values can serve as a reference point; for occupied workspaces, indoor ozone levels should definitely be kept below 0.1 ppm.

 

https://learn.kaiterra.com/en/resources/ozone-what-levels-are-safe

[Fazza]

the photocopier company's repair engineer who said "that room is too small"; he also told me a 4-year-old machine is "really old"

 

Ask your account manager for clarification on why the room is too small and what their requirements are and also ask why they have provided you with 'really old' machines. Unless you already have this in writing, anything said verbally like this can be taken with a pinch of salt. Let us know what they say.

[enjay]

Unless you already have this in writing, anything said verbally like this can be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

I was taking the engineer's comment with more than just a pinch of salt! The account manager has since responded with similarly vague advice from the manufacturer which just refers to adequate ventilation without defining what that actually means, so it looks like there's no rule to do with photocopiers specifically (other than the 8-year-old DfE guidance document), so we're going with the same risk assessment for air quality and noise we would do for any other room.

[psydii]

That's BB101 and is current. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-bulletin-101-ventilation-for-school-buildings so if it says 20l/m then that's what's required (in new builds).

 

It is also (word-for-word) including the School Output Specification Generic Design brief (December 2023) document https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employers-requirements-part-b-generic-design-brief.

Which is part of this set of documents: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/school-design-and-construction. Though this document set has not been updated to include BB101, but instead includes reference to the consultation that was to result in BB101.

 

All of these documents reference this document: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62a761edd3bf7f03667c667e/ADF2_revised.pdf (AD / F) which has to be the definitive word on the matter for all buildings.

 

edit: AD/F cites BB101 as the definitive source of guidance for school buildings.

Edited July 2, 2024 by psydii

[mavhc]

Why specify airflow instead of the concentration of ozone?

[psydii]

Why specify airflow instead of the concentration of ozone?

 

 

HSE set the limits https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/eh40.pdf

 

 

AD / F takes them and says the following:

Office equipment can emit pollutants, including ozone and organic compounds. For example, a

study by Black and Wortham (1999) suggests the following emission rates for laser printers and dry

paper copiers assuming 30 minutes use in an hour.

a. 25mg/h for TVOC.

b. 3mg/h for ozone.

To meet the performance criteria for these pollutants requires an extract rate of 20 litres per second

per machine during use

 

An older HSE document ( more recent than that 1999 study but now retired and unlisted https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20080730213136/http://www.hse.gov.uk//lau/lacs/90-2.htm ) says

"Tests have found 0.12 ppm at the discharge from a cooling fan after 1 100 copies have been produced but, more typically, 0.02 ppm was measured in a number of locations at which a very slight smell of ozone was perceptible. 0.02 ppm is generally regarded as the world wide background concentration level of ozone. In London in summer it averages between 0.04 and 0.06 ppm. On smoggy days it may reach 0. 2 ppm for some hours."

Edited July 2, 2024 by psydii

[enjay]

Why specify airflow instead of the concentration of ozone?

 

Because ozone isn't the only Nasty which could be in the air from photocopiers.

[enjay]

That's BB101 and is current. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-bulletin-101-ventilation-for-school-buildings so if it says 20l/m then that's what's required (in new builds).

 

Awesome, thanks @psydii I've passed this back to Site Team now, since it seems there's no IT-specific element to this. They'll do their standard risk assessment of the workspace.