Fume Hood Shutdowns
Fume hoods are a crucial engineering control to ensure researcher safety.
Occasionally, fume hoods need to be shut down for maintenance, testing, or modification. When a fume hood is shut down it will not effectively protect anyone handling hazardous materials in the fume hood. Additionally, handling hazardous materials while the fume hood is non-operational may inadvertently expose any staff servicing the system. When a fume hood is non-operational, all open handling of hazardous materials in the fume hood must cease: for example, opening waste containers and/or conducting or continuing to conduct open top reactions, etc.
How can the Department Safety Coordinator, Facility Manager, and/or Department administration find out when a fume hood shutdown will occur?
Anyone can sign up to receive shutdown notifications directly through the Facilities Management Shutdown Notifications page.
Department Safety Coordinators, Facility Managers, and/or Department administration are more likely to serve in the role of Shutdown Approvers. This person or people are responsible for reviewing, coordinating, and approving utility shutdown requests on behalf of the department. Shutdown approver responsibilities include evaluating each shutdown request to ensure it will not adversely impact the department’s operations, communicating upcoming shutdowns to all relevant staff within the department, and serving as the primary point of contact for Facilities Management regarding shutdown activity in the building. This information can be modified through the Facility Contact Information portal, available on the Facilities Management webpage.
How are labs notified when a fume hood shutdown will occur?
In most departments, Facilities alerts the Department Safety Coordinator, Facility Manager, and/or Department administration the date and time of the proposed fume hood shutdown. The Department Safety Coordinator, Facility Manager, and/or Department administration must convey the shutdown to the department by email, although some departments also post the shutdown notification. Users can also check the shutdown notifications. In order to ensure fume hood shutdowns are conveyed effectively, departments should choose a backup person to receives fume hood shutdowns that affect the department and who can convey the shutdown to the department. In order to ensure fume hood shutdowns are conveyed effectively, departments should choose a backup person to receives fume hood shutdowns that affect the department and who can convey the shutdown to the department.
How do labs know when the work is done and the fume hood is operational?
In general, the time limit listed on the shutdown notification is indicative of the time users can expect fume hoods to come back online. Some departments may send an email indicating that the work is completed, although this is not common: generally, labs are not notified that the work is completed unless the shutdown was longer than expected. Once work is completed, the shutdown notification is removed from the shutdown notifications list.
Before starting work in a fume hood after a shutdown, users must ensure the fume hood is working as expected. Researchers know fume hoods are operational when the air flow monitor indicates that the hood is providing the correct face velocity to protect researchers working at the hood.
UC Davis has several different types of air flow monitors: review the examples below to ensure you know how to read the monitor attached to your fume hood. The air flow monitor attached to your fume hood may look different but the type will likely still fall into one of these categories.
If you need assistance in reading your air flow monitor, review the manufacturers instruction available online or contact EH&S at [email protected].
Air Flow Monitor Examples:
Magnehelic Gauge
Since this air flow monitor does not read in feet per second, Facilities generally has marked a line (typically black) where the dial should be (highlighted in the image by a red line and red arrow), indicating the fume hood is working as expected. If there is no clear line indicating the fume hood is working correctly, contact Facilities 530-752-1655.
“Go/No-go” Air Flow Monitor
This air flow monitor does not indicate the value of the face velocity but rather provides a visual indication whether the fume hood is working as expected. If the fume hood is working properly, the green light (highlighted in the image by a red box) is illuminated.
Digital Air Flow Monitor
This air flow monitor has a visual display indicating the face velocity (highlighted in the image by a red box). If the value is above 100 fpm (feet per minute) the fume hood is working as expected.