When you own a business or commercial building, it’s up to you to ensure facility safety. It doesn’t matter if you own a factory, warehouse, retail space, or medical facility. If someone is injured on your property due to your negligence, you could be held liable for their medical bills.
Furthermore, property safety issues resulting in personal injuries will make you susceptible to personal injury lawsuits, which could tank your business and ruin your life. Therefore, ensuring your facility is safe for you, your staff, and everyone else who enters it is of the utmost importance.
Here are some quick tips on what to look for during your safety inspection.
1. Fire Safety
One of the biggest threats to any structure is fire hazards. Are there any places in your facility that carries a high-risk factor for fires? What systems do you have in place to combat fires and alert people on-site?
This also includes making sure you’re adhering to fire safety standards in terms of maximum building capacities, the number of fire exits, available fire extinguishers, and more.
2. Unobstructed Pathways
Another important aspect of maintaining a safe building is making sure there are open pathways free of clutter and debris. This concept is important for multiple reasons.
First, even during non-emergency situations, obstructed pathways can lead to slips and falls, which could result in personal injuries. Secondly, in the event of a fire, people need clear routes of evacuation. You don’t want people getting hurt tripping over obstacles as they’re trying to flee from a fire.
3. Overhead Hazards
Depending on the type of property or commercial building you own, there may also be overhead dangers. For example, in storage facilities, improperly stored items or materials could be potentially deadly if they fell from above onto a bystander.
You also need to make sure there aren’t any overhanging hazards at head height. If someone didn’t see the overhang and walked into it, it could lead to serious injury.
4. Up-to-Date Electrical
Electrical systems can be incredibly dangerous if they’re out of date or fail to meet coding standards. Older electrical systems can fail to handle to demands of modern businesses leading to power failures and short-circuits.
Poorly installed or damaged electrical wires can lead to shocks, electrocutions, and potential fires.
5. Water Damage and Mold
Finally, make sure your facility is protected from the elements. Mostly, this means making sure you’re roof is free from leaks and other damages. However, water damage can result from leaky pipes or even day to day operations from factories that produce a lot of steam.
Make sure you’re building isn’t suffering from water damage. You should also check for dangerous molds that can potentially cause health problems among your employees and other building inhabitants.
Check out this post for more information on insulation installation and care.
Is Your Facility Safe?
Are you running a safe and secure facility? We highly recommend making sure your building is up to code in terms of fire safety, electrical, insulation, and more. Being a business owner is difficult enough, you don’t need injuries and potential lawsuits on top of everything else.
And if you’re looking for more business-related tips and advice, be sure to check out some of our other articles before you go. Our blog was created to help business owners like you.
