Tips to Keep Your Shop Garage Cool in the Summer Heat

As the global climate changes, many parts of the country are experiencing longer and more intense heatwaves. Areas where working outside or in an open service bay may have been pleasant or only occasionally hot in the past are now suffering from increasingly severe heat events.

When temperatures get high, people can overheat and become ill with heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heat syncope, heat cramps or heat rashes. Heat can also increase workers’ risk of injuries because it can lead to loss of focus, sweaty palms, fogged-up safety glasses, dizziness and reduced brain function.

Traditional shop safety programs focus on slip, trip and fall hazards. They also should address heat stress because it can be a major contributor to accidents and work-related injuries, especially in the summer months.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) holds employers responsible for protecting workers from extreme heat under its General Duty Clause. California, Minnesota and Washington also have state laws governing on-the-job heat exposure.

While it may not be practical or cost-effective to move all service bays inside or install central air conditioning, there are affordable steps shop owners can take to provide a cooler, safer and more productive work environment.

Give workers time to acclimatize to the heat with reduced workloads and allow frequent breaks for new workers or at the beginning of the hot weather season. According to OSHA, most outdoor fatalities due to heat occur in the first few days of working in warm or hot environments because the body needs to build heat tolerance gradually over time.
Encourage proper hydration and make it easier for technicians to access cool drinking fluids.
Change schedules to incorporate more frequent breaks or allow employees to work earlier or later in the day when it is not as hot.
Get a portable evaporative air cooler (AKA swamp cooler). A swamp cooler can reduce the temperature surrounding it by up to 26 degrees indoors or even in a covered outdoor work area. They cost about $1 a day to operate and use natural evaporation to cool the area.

Train your team to identify heat-related health symptoms and react quickly to provide the affected worker with water, rest and shade.

The Porsche 959 was another first to use a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) because it was equipped with the world’s first self-supporting run-flat tires made by Bridgestone. This TPMS setup was again used on the 928 for model years 1990 to 1994.

The early system used two sensors mounted 180 degrees apart in special holes in the valley of the wheel. The sensors looked like a stack of poker chips. A diaphragm inside the sensors connected to switches that were set to a reference pressure. The receiver was mounted on the knuckle and was an inductive coil that would pass current through the sensors. Depending on the position of the diaphragm and which switches were open or closed, the amount of current flowing through the receiver’s coil would change.