WAC 296-809-20002. Identify permit-required confined spaces

You must identify all permit-required confined spaces in your workplace. Use a person with the knowledge, skills, and abilities, capable of identifying actual and potential hazards related to permit-required confined spaces and with the authority to take prompt corrective action, such as an entry supervisor or competent person.

Important: Identification of Permit-Required Confined Space(s) involves a two-step process.

Step 1: Identify confined spaces.

Confined space. A space that is all of the following:

• Large enough and arranged so an employee could fully enter the space and work.

• Has limited or restricted entry or exit. Examples of spaces with limited or restricted entry are tanks, vessels, silos, storage bins, hoppers, vaults, excavations, and pits.

• Not primarily designed for continuous human occupancy.

See Appendix A Frequently Asked Questions and Examples of Confined Spaces by visiting the labor and industries website at http://www.lni.wa.gov/safety/rules/chapter/809/.

Step 2: Evaluate the actual and potential hazards of each confined space to identify the permit-required confined space(s).

Permit-required confined space or permit space. A confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics capable of causing death or serious physical harm.

• Contains or has a potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere.

• Contains a material with the potential for engulfing someone who enters.

• Has an internal configuration that could allow someone entering to be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor, which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross section.

• Contains any physical hazard. This includes any recognized health or safety hazards including engulfment in solid or liquid material, electrical shock, or moving parts.

• Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard that could either:

(a) Impair the ability to self-rescue; or

by inwardly converging walls or by a floor, which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross section.

• Contains any physical hazard. This includes any recognized health or safety hazards including engulfment in solid or liquid material, electrical shock, or moving parts.

• Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard that could either:

(a) Impair the ability to self-rescue; or

(b) Result in a situation that presents an immediate danger to life or health.

See Appendix B Examples of Permit-Required Confined Space Hazards by visiting the labor and industries website at http://www.lni.wa.gov/safety/rules/chapter/809/.