In this episode of the OnAire Podcast, we’re joined by Diane Cave, a powerhouse in the combustible dust world with 20+ years of experience helping facilities uncover and address hidden hazards.
If you’re a plant manager, engineer, or EH&S leader, this episode is your no-fluff, real-world guide to doing Dust Hazard Analyses (DHAs) right—and what happens when you don’t.
TL;DR: A vague Dust Hazard Analysis isn’t harmless—it’s dangerous. In this episode, Diane Cave explains how language, leadership, and liability intersect in combustible dust safety. You’ll leave with tools to ask better questions, write stronger reports, and create a culture where safety isn’t a checkbox—it’s a commitment.
🎙️ What You’ll Learn:
✅ Why DHAs fail (and how to make yours actionable)
✅ The danger of “soft language” in safety reporting
✅ How insurers and regulators are driving DHA enforcement
✅ The right way to think about compressed air and blowdowns
✅ How safety culture shows up in the dust (literally)
✅ When your cleaning plan is actually failing
✅ Why clarity in a DHA isn’t just kind—it’s critical
Diane also shares her infamous “dust lottery” analogy—and why some facilities are unknowingly buying tickets.
“Every time you say ‘should consider,’ you’re giving someone permission to ignore a hazard.” – Diane Cave
🙋♂️ Who This Is For:
This episode is made for manufacturing professionals who are:
🧠 Overwhelmed by combustible dust compliance
📋 Unsure what a DHA actually needs to say
🔎 Tired of vague language and unclear next steps
💬 Ready to improve internal safety communication
📉 Trying to reduce risk, downtime, and insurance headaches
Episode Transcript:
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the OnAire podcast. I’m Jordan.
And I’m Taylor.
Here we are talking about combustible dust once again.
Surprise, surprise.
That’s what we do!
So, today we’ve got an awesome guest, Diane Cave, who has a couple decades of combustible dust experience. She’s got that 28 year old mentality, but she’s been doing this for quite a while.
She’s not going to like that.
Anyway, we had a great time talking to her, trying to pull some information from her vast experience in the combustible dust world. And a lot of time spent on DHAs and what you can do to make them better for your organization and get your bang for your buck when it comes to DHAs.
Yeah, I mean, they’re not easy documents. Even being in the dust space, sometimes they can be really confusing to us. One of her more important things is just the understanding of the language and how we are intentional about the things we say. And just that mindset where clarity is kindness. The same thing as in a DHA: should we say, “should we?” or “shall we?” “May we?” or “could we?” We’ll find out. We’ll talk about noodly stuff, noodly language, and even some uses for your pie dishes as well.
As we try to climb dust mountain with Diane Cave. Here you go. Check it out.
Lights are on. Mics are hot. Here we go. Welcome back to the SonicAire OnAire podcast. Today we’re talking to Diane Cave. Diane, welcome to the OnAire podcast.
Good day, guys. Good day. Thank you for having me.
Yeah. We were just talking about our inner geekness.
Yeah. We were talking about not making things too nerdy with two professional engineers and another engineer and just all kinds of things. It’s a podcast about dust. You can’t get away from it. So, we’re just going to embrace it.
Embrace it. What was it you said, Diane?
Geekness is not a weakness.
Not a weakness.
I mean, geeks and nerds run the world now, you know.
And here we are. Look at us now.
Yeah, yeah, exactly!
We’ve got a cool flashing light, too.
That’s right. All right. So, we’re talking about dust and all things dust as we always do here on the OnAire podcast. So, Diane has over 20 years of experience in dust and combustible dust. So, Diane, how did you get started down the path of dust? I’m sure as a kid growing up, you probably did not go, I want to play with dust for a living. Like that’s what I aspire to do.
So, I have a really kind of weird story, I guess, as to how I got started in the field. So, I’m in Canada, and I was working at the customer service desk of Canadian Tire. That’s kind of like Lowe’s, or Home Depot, that kind of thing, minus the appliances. Anyhow, and this guy came in, and he needed a part, and I made fun of him and, it ended up…in Canada, you wear a ring on your pinky finger of your working hand, right? I’m left-handed, so it’s on my… And so, he threw the thing at me to take it out of the package, and I caught it with my left hand. And he was like, oh, you’re an engineer! You get your ring in March, and then I’d graduated in May. And, I was like, oh, well, aren’t you brilliant? Aren’t you smart? You know, I’ve always been a little bit chippy. And he was like, what are you doing working here? And I’m like, well, I’ve got to pay my way through school and blah, blah, blah. And so, then he was like, well, where’d you apply? And, you know, I have an engineering company and why didn’t you apply at my company? And I was like, I don’t know, was like whatever.
And so, he kept coming back into Canadian Tire when I was working. He brought his wife in to meet me and whatnot. And then he kept saying that he was going to hire me. And then eventually I went down to their office and I just kind of said, my lease is up in a couple of months, and I’ve got to figure out what to do. So, if you’re going to hire me, then you need to hire me, or otherwise I’m going to go out to the oil patch or something like that. And he was just kind of like, whoa, young kids at a school don’t do that sort of thing, right?
And so then, like a week later, he came back into Canadian Tire and he was like, how’s July 13th? And I was like, I don’t know, it’s a lovely day in the summer, like whatever. And he was like, well, it’ll be your start date. And I was like, oh, okay. And then this is what he did. And so, I worked for him for 15 years. And then after 15 years, just kind of, I needed to prove to myself that I could make it on my own merits, kind of thing. It was a very hard decision to make and it wasn’t easy at all. And then I left kind of working with him and under his umbrella and to where I am now at Element 6.
Love it.
What an awesome story. I thought we had a long interview process. Little did I know we just need to be hitting up Home Depot and Lowe’s more often.
Yeah. Well, it was funny because the company that I worked for at that time had other people that came in to interview, and they had histories of working at Canadian Tire. And then they hired them automatically just because they worked at Canadian Tire. I was like, it doesn’t mean everyone that works here has any ambition.
It’s a correlation, not causation type deal. That’s really cool. So, how did you get into the combustible dust space, though?
So, the gentleman that had hired me from Canadian Tire, that’s what he did. He worked in combustible dust. Sorry, my computer’s doing funny things. There we go. So, he worked in combustible dust, and he worked in dust collection and all those good things. Because that’s what he did and he was looking for his protege or whatnot, if you will. And so, then I kind of came along. And it’s really weird, because I used to think that he was old when he hired me, but my birthday was Saturday and I turned that age that he was when he hired me. I was like, oh, so now I’m old, I guess. So anyway, yeah.
Now you know how the college graduates are looking at you.
Yeah, but you know, in my head I’m still 28, so it’s okay.
That’s exactly right. I think we all are.
I don’t think mentally you ever get past that. It’s not like you’re like, oh, this week I’m 35. No, you’re always just 28.
Loving every minute of it. So, where do you spend most of your time these days when it comes to dust? What’s your focus? Where are you? What are you working on?
So, I’m probably about a 50 50 office to site split. And so, last couple of years, we’ve been doing a lot of work in the grain world. But with some sawdust sprinkled in, or wood manufacturing, I guess, because it’s not all sawdust, sprinkled in. And then just kind of some odds and sods of other things all over the place. Because the market is huge because there’s such a demand for it because there’s so many people that make dust and whatnot. But the amount of professionals out there that know what they’re doing…and as I’ve learned, that aren’t a pain in the butt to work with. That’s apparently another big quality, that I’m apparently not a pain in the butt. Then you’re sought after. We’re really lucky in that respect, and we don’t have to pound and knock on too many doors because you just get a lot of referrals and phone calls and what I like to call repeat offenders.
Yeah, the soft skills will take you far, Diane. Keep up the good work.
Especially as an engineer. Any time you know that you’re going to be working with one, you just have this default mindset of what you’re walking into. You’re going to have a very bland, very dry conversation. You’re to have to talk about some numbers and whatnot. So yeah, that is definitely one of the biggest hurdles, even we face, going into different type of dusty environments and whatnot. So, when they find out we’re humans, it’s actually pretty nice and makes it easier for us to work with. Me and Jordan know what you do, but can you talk a little bit more about what you do with Element 6?
So, what I do at Element 6. So, I have a group, which is nice because it hasn’t always been that way. So, there’s a group of us now. And so, I ultimately oversee them. Some people in the group have been in the field almost 10 years, and some are just new, as in we have a new guy that just started this month. So, we’re kind of like a varied collective group.
So, in terms of what we do or what I do, so I’m ultimately overseeing to make sure that all the clients are happy. That’s my end goal. My goal is to make them look good and to make sure that they’re happy and safe and meet their objectives is ultimately what it comes down to. And so, we spend, like I said, about 50 % of the time on site. So, site time can be for conducting DHAs. So, we do a fair amount of dust hazard assessments.
I like to say that I just go and wave my hands a lot and make a bunch of notes, take some pictures and teach people stuff. And then I give them a report. So, we do a lot of DHAs or we could be doing electrical area classification stuff. We could be collecting information for doing system design. So, we’ll put in new systems. We don’t rep or supply any equipment directly. I like the ability to be disconnected from suppliers. We have people that we like to work with because they supply good products and they’re not a pain in the butt to work with. And there’s a good rapport back and forth, as in sometimes they need help and sometimes we need help, and we can help each other out in terms of exchange of information and whatnot. So, we could be there collecting information for a new design or retrofitting an existing system, which is what I was doing last week in Long Island, New York. And we also do vessel strength analysis. So sometimes we’re on site getting all the measurements for that and material thicknesses to basically figure out what a P-RED is. What else do we do on site? We do training and troubleshooting and startup and commissioning of systems, old systems, new systems, or retrofitted systems. And then if I’m in the office, which doesn’t have it nearly enough it seems then it’s writing the dreaded report the DHA report and reviewing design work and having meetings – everyone wants to talk to me when I’m in the office – and then putting together design packages and that sort of thing to make sure that we can get the designs and the information out to the folks that need it.
Love it. I’ve got, you know, talk nerdy to me. I’ve got my handy dandy copy of NFPA 660 here. Never leave home without it. How has this new standard changed what you’re doing?
How has it changed it? I wouldn’t say that it’s changed it a whole lot. Because really there hasn’t been a lot of, there’s been a few things that have changed, but it’s pretty much the same thing repackaged, right? They’ve just taken what, like five? Is it four them or five codes, smashed them all together, got rid of some redundant stuff and then put it all together. So with that, it hasn’t changed anything. What I miss is I want a PDF copy that I can search through because I travel so much. So, I like to be able to do it on airplanes and whatnot. And I haven’t gotten my head around using the linked stuff because I think you can do that with Link on and off line. But so far there isn’t that many changes that have occurred in the actual material and stuff that’s in there. There’s a few things that used to be there that aren’t and new stuff that’s appeared. But overall it hasn’t changed anything. I think it’s probably made things a little easier because it’s all in one spot and redundancies are gone by the wayside, or starting to.
Yeah, I agree. I think that’s been our experience as well. Just having everything in one place and one place to go, one source of truth to go get answers, I think has been a great move by NFPA and I appreciate the hard work that they put in to writing this thing and getting it all synced up.
Yeah, I think we’ll probably all lose our minds when they do the first real revision through.
I can tell you one thing that is a good thing, but it’s kind of frustrating for me. It’s like, I knew what our code number was, like every single time. And so, I could say 9.6.3, and then here’s the little sub bullets below here where I can explain to you why this has to be interlocked and all of those little things. I had to come get your book out of your office Friday and you weren’t here. And so, I had to start flipping through. I had to, one, check that we were the same section. But it’s changed by like one number. It’s 9.5.3 or something now. Anyways, yeah, I do agree. think it’s great that they’ve compiled it all into one space. And then one thing that we even got in on is a little bit of this language change. And that’s something that we wanted to talk to you about because you wrote a really great article about these kind of, they seem like very minor differences in wording, but they mean a very different thing. So, can you talk to us a little bit about your article?
Words matter.
The soft language? The wet noodle language? Yeah, so in what I do, or in the field that I’m in or whatnot, you often get asked to review someone else’s DHA. Like, a client will read this and then what do you think? And so often it’s limp language. It’s just kind of like, it’s just there, right? And it doesn’t really…the end user, they want direction. So, it’s like I said, in the article where these people are making something, that’s their specialty and what they do. So, whether they’re making widgets or they’re making, I don’t know, two by fours or dog beds or whatever it is that they’re making, they don’t necessarily have an expertise in combustible dust, and they just want a hit list of what they need to do. So, if you write in there, it would be a good idea to…
That’s not getting done. That’s never getting done.
Yeah, so I always go back to when I was a kid and we would be home. So, I have a brother, and so my brother and I would be home in the summers and we’d be like, you know, playing soccer, doing whatever. And dad would be like, well, if you’re looking for something to do, right, you can cut the grass. And then he’d come home and he’s like, why isn’t the grass cut? And we’re like, we weren’t looking for something to do. We found plenty to do. So, then it changed to cut the grass or weed the garden or whatever. And it’s the same thing with a DHA. So, tell the people, tell the end user what you want. So, if this is required, tell them it’s required. You, you, you’ve got to do this. You have to do this. Don’t consider it, because you could stand there and be like, hmm, okay, yeah, I thought about it. It’s going to be a lot of money. I’ve now considered it. I’ve checked the box. Move on. So, you need to be concise and you need to be direct about it. As much as no one likes to do that because it scares people in the reports. The folks reading the reports need to need to know that.
Yeah, it’s either an issue that needs to be solved or it’s a non-issue. Move on. One way or the other.
Yeah. And so, I’ve started now in my DHAs to have the requirements and recommendations section. And so, there’s a whole section of, this is what you got to do and this is your whole list of requirements. And then recommendations are things that we think is a good idea because it’s, you know, maybe it will improve the safety or the runability or the longevity of your equipment, but it’s not a requirement, but would be a good idea to do. And so, people have found that quite helpful in the report. So, then there’s no question of, do I have to do this? Do I not have to do it? They know.
Yeah, and we run into that. I mean, even with producing equipment and whatnot, like when we were getting certifications done, we’re like, do we actually need to do this? And they’re kind of like, well, it would be nice. And then they still made us do it. I’m like, just tell me up front. I wouldn’t do all this back and forth. Because yeah, I buy a lot of the equipment here. And if somebody says, you should probably do that, I’ll look at it. I’ll price it. But I’m not going to do it.
Well, especially if you’re talking about, you know, it’s a good idea to put in a suppression system. So, if you’re talking about a bucket elevator that’s, you know, 100 feet tall, then you’re probably going to have to, because bucket elevators are not usually built terribly well in terms of strength, because we’ve done a whole lot of finite element analysis on bucket elevators, and they require usually a whole big pile of protection on them. So then, if somebody is looking at, so we’re going to have to shut down, we’re going to have to put reinforcing on this and then put in like $100,000 plus of gear on this bucket elevator. And the recommendation is you should consider it. I’ve considered it, and it’s a buttload of money and it’s a pain in the butt, and yeah, done. But if you then change the “should consider it” to “it must be done” then they go, guess I’ll put in a capex.
Yeah, I think soft language in gray areas create fog, confusion and leave a gap in safety. Yeah, I appreciate your attention to detail on this.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, no, I think it’s a big deal. think manufacturers and employers need to be aware of that and understand what the difference is in that language and how important it is.
Yeah, and I think that people that are writing any sort of an assessment report, so like that’s what a DHA is, right? It’s an assessment of combustible dust hazards. So, whether you’re writing a DHA or a system assessment or an electrical area classification or whatever it is, the people that are writing it have to be cognizant of that and make sure that they’re using the right language that’s going to direct the people how they need to be directed, right? To make sure that you’re not inadvertently creating loopholes for people to get in and around and whatnot. Especially when it comes to safety.
Yep. And so, talking about DHAs. I have this conversation with a lot of people too. Hey, have you done a DHA? No? You should do that. Well, it’s kind of like, says who? Like, who’s enforcing that? So, in the real world, who is enforcing DHAs, and where do you see that driven from for people to do a DHA?
So, I wrote an article about this as well, but it was for Canadian magazine.
It hasn’t migrated south for the winter yet.
No, not yet. But the idea was exactly that. Like, why should you do a DHA? So, I know, in Canada, the Department of Labor has come along and told various facilities they’ve come in and gone into the facilities and they’ve got dust up to their knees kind of thing, and they’ve been told that they need to do DHAs. So, we’ve had that kind of enforcement in Canada. I don’t know if it has…I haven’t done any in the US as mandated by a governing body. So, I don’t know if they have the ability to do that. In most cases, all the DHAs I’ve conducted in the states have been like a corporate initiative. And so, a lot of them are because there’s been incidences at their facilities, like within their organization, and they’re kind of scared into doing it, I guess would be the way to say it. Or they’ve suddenly realized it can happen to them, like an incident can happen to them. Which is unfortunate but, I mean, in their cases nobody got hurt or injured, it was just a loss of property and process. But who’s actually enforcing it? I don’t know. Because there isn’t enough people to get into all the facilities to then look at documentation and be like, do you have your DHA? I want to see your file trail or your paper trail kind of thing. And there just isn’t the people to enforce it to do anything in the US. In Canada, I know that the ones that have been enforced was the Department of Labor was there looking at something else. Like OSHA does spot checks in the US, right? So, they came and they were doing a spot check on something else and they’re like, whoa, this place is really dusty. Do you have a DHA? And they went, no. And they’re like, well, here’s your order to go do one.
Yeah, that’s good to hear.
The other people that are pushing for it is insurers, because with all this crazy weather business that’s going on in the world, and all kinds of uncertainty, insurers are trying more and more to lower the risk, right? And so, we’ve had, in the wood industry in particular, like all across Canada and the US, insurers have been refusing to insure sawmills because they deem them too unsafe and whatnot. And then it starts with a DHA, and then they’ve got to implement the outcomings from the DHA and be making strides, and then once they do that, then they’ll get insured.
It really is a great tool to do the analysis, to understand what you’re working with, and then suddenly it’s in front of you, and you have to do something with it. You have to choose to address it or not at that point. But at least it’s on paper. It’s in front of you, and you know you can recognize the hazards, and then you can have an open discussion with your leadership, with your funding, with the AHJs and insurance companies as well.
Yeah, that’s one of the more interesting things. And then hearing you talk about how this kind of plays out in Canada is it really does come down to that safety business where it’s personal, where we’re not having people knocking on our doors, like coming in and saying, give me your paperwork. Where’s your DHA or whatever. But for the sake of property and process, but then more importantly, here over last little bit where we’ve had these incidents here in the Midwest and up in Pennsylvania and things where it’s like, people’s lives are at stake for this. And you know, as goofy as it sounds or whatever, dust causes so much of a problem where we have to have this thing in place. There was an arbitrary September date last year where there was a requirement where you had to have it done. And we would see people at trade shows, or we would have phone calls with them and we’re like, have you guys done it? You know this is coming up. And they’re like, what are you even talking about? Like, we’re not doing this unless da da da, like insurance or my boss says I have to. And so.
Yeah, I don’t know how you convince people outside of seeing a tragedy that this is important.
Yeah, to do the right thing.
So, I’m normally quite pleasant. I don’t burn bridges, but I’m also not going to get pushed around and pushed over. I always tell people I’m not a yes man. I’m not going to sit here and say yes, and I’m not a dude. Anyhow, so I don’t fall into either one of those categories. And so, I was at a site doing a DHA and the general manager of the facility, he was checking a box. Somebody was forcing him to check a box and it was super…He was very aggressive about the fact that…I should also back up and say that they had blown up like every piece of equipment at their facility, minus like a dryer, but he was still convinced that there wasn’t a combustible dust hazard.
And so, we’re sitting in a room and like all his maintenance people are there, and I was just like, I’ve had enough. And I just looked at him and I was like, why are we doing this? Like, why are we doing this? Are we doing this because you want to improve the safety? Are you doing it because, I list off…then the final one that I list off is like, are you just doing this to check a box? And he goes, I’m just doing it to check a box. And then his maintenance team is sitting there. And then I just turned to them and I’m like, you guys should all be really scared. I was like, because this guy is gambling with your life. You guys have blown up stuff left, right and center. And he’s sitting here being like, it’s all in your head. It’s not a problem. Blah, blah, blah. You’re just doing this because this is what you do. And I was like, and somebody’s going to die. And then I turned back to the general manager. I’m like, you want to check a box? Let’s check a box, and let’s get this done. So, they haven’t called me back for work.
Yeah. And that’s one of those cases where he doesn’t want to see the report because then he’s going to be responsible for having to fix those things and address those issues. Then it’s going to be his problem. Then it’s going to be his butt on the line. If something does happen.
Yeah. Yeah, so that’s the only time that I’ve openly just been like, I can’t handle it. Enough. And just outright burnt the bridge. And the maintenance guys were all sitting there, their eyes were just massive and huge because they didn’t understand what the hazards were and what the risk was. So anyway.
That’s the sad part, because like Jordan was just saying, once we have it, you have to do something with it, or you’re liable. I mean, in some senses. I mean, we’ve seen in some of these explosions where they have done the post-op on it, and people have gone to jail because they were forging documents, or they have said, yes, we’re doing this mitigation program, or yes, we shall, should, maybe could do some of these things, and then we didn’t. And then that cost somebody to lose their life and now they’re responsible.
And so not so much now, but I would say maybe five years ago you get the question, exactly that. So, who’s liable if you’re sitting there and there’s a…I always have like a closeout meeting, and usually one of the money counters always show up and whatnot. And so, you’re sitting there and you’re going through everything and this that and whatnot and all the things like the good and the bad and the ugly. And then somebody will ask, well, so who’s responsible if something happens? And I’m like, it’s whoever said no knowing what the consequences were. And they’re all sitting there, and so I turned to the money guy and I was like, and that means you. So, if you’re saying no because it’s too much money, but you understand that this could be the casualty fallout, or what could happen because of it, then it’s your neck that’s on the line. And so suddenly they’re more willing to do something when they realize that they can be personally responsible for it.
That’s a big weight.
Yeah, it’s really refreshing though when you work with a company that already knows that. And then they’re like, we know we can’t do everything all at once, but we want to start with the bad stuff and get things better. And then they’re actively making strides and they’re all working together for that one collective goal to make sure that everyone makes it home the same way that they came in that day.
Wow. Yeah, because sometimes I feel like we get pinned in that where we’ve worked. I mean, we work with insurance companies and they actively will push our product in some instances. There are some industries where it’s a requirement that you have our product or similar installed in order to get insurance just because they know it works for that industry that well. But we’ll know pretty quick when it’s like, hey, just send me a quote.
But we do full system design. We’re like, okay, well, let’s talk about your process. and they’re, no no no. Just give me a number and give me a quote. And so, it’s like, okay, you’re definitely just checking the box.
Yep. And the box checkers are the hard ones to work with. That’s for sure.
It’s a culture thing. It’s a mindset thing. We talk about culture quite a bit on here, but I think once you get into that type of scenario, it’s hard to overcome that. I’ve had people tell me that their wood shop is more likely to get struck by lightning than have a combustible dust event. And it’s like, okay.
So, what I always say to that is I always call it the dust lottery. And so they’ll sit there and they’ll say something like that. Well, you know, what are the chances? I was like, do you buy lottery tickets? And they’re like, yeah, of course I buy lottery tickets. And I’m like, cool. So, have you won? So, it’s Lotto Max is what it is here in Canada. I was like, have you won the Lotto Max? Or if I’m in the States, like the Megabucks or whatever it is. And they’re like, no, cause if I’d won it, I wouldn’t be here. And I’m like, yeah, well you haven’t won the dust lottery yet. And it’s a lottery you don’t want to win. And so, it’s not a question. It can happen and your stars just have to align. Same reason you win the lottery. So, you’re gunning to win the Megabucks, but you’re not gunning to win the dust lottery. And when you kind of put it into perspective like that, and they’re just kind of like, okay. Like, okay.
But I can’t believe, you know, there are people that will play that lottery all day.
Yeah, 100%. Like I’ve been in places where it would shut down Friday midnight to then clean for the weekend. And then they would start up Monday, like the start of Monday, Monday midnight. And then they would run. And so, I was on site at like 10 a.m. on Tuesday kind of thing. And we’re trudging through dust that’s just below my knees. And it’s all combustible, whatnot. And then so the guy that was taking us around, or my babysitters I like to call them, so I said to him, I was like, so Friday when you shut down, is the dust about this deep? And I just kind of stuck my arm straight out from my shoulder. So, I’m like five six and some change and so the dust level would be close to somewhere between four and a half and five feet?
Oh, my goodness.
And he just goes, yeah. Yeah, like I’m an idiot for asking. So, they had places where they would have like drifts of dust that were close to five feet deep, and to them it was normal because that’s just their culture. Like, this is the dust culture, safety culture, whatever you want to call it in facility.
Yeah, that’s insane. Because we talk to people when they’re at trade shows, and they’re like, this is exactly what I need. Because I do all this stuff, and I use my air compressor, or I get a broom, or I pay the guys all the money to bring in the vacuums and whatnot. So, this would be great. And then they don’t do anything.
And then you never hear from them again.
Yeah, so it’s definitely a culture thing about how they try to solve their problem, which brings up another article that you just wrote. Because we got sent all of your stuff before this, and so we are well versed. We know your material better than you do at this point.
Except the stuff that hasn’t made it south for the winter.
That’s right. That’s right.
But I’ll send you the one on why to do a DHA. I’ll send it to you.
We would love that. But you put out one recently on blowdowns with compressed air.
Compressed air relocation program?
Yes. And so, one of my favorite lines in there – I love the way you write also.
Thank you.
But one of my favorite lines in there is that there’s a time and place for everything, but the time is not always and the place is not everywhere. And so, can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve seen in industry with compressed air? Because we see this all the time. They’re like, oh yeah, I go down and we shut down and we blow everything down and then we keep going. But can you just talk a little bit about that?
You see kind of everything like right across the board, right? So, there’s some places, I was at one this fall, where they had a lot of dust, fine dust. It’s a wood processing facility and they, like everything is cleaned with compressed air. And they just start at the top and blow down, but there’s so much dust sitting around that really by the time they get down to the next level, they’re blowing it up to the level above, and they just kind of don’t understand why the dust just kind of keeps churning around. And I’m like, well. You are experts in the dust relocation program, right? And you see places, and they’ve got like a strategic map on how to clean with compressed air as opposed to just figuring out where the dust is coming from and then stopping it. So, you’ll be in some facilities, and they’ll have these gaping holes in conveyor covers or bins. Or every time the process presses, you know I mean? Like there’s a pressure change, then you’ve got the dust spurting out all over the place. And, it’s like, well, if you just fix that, seal it maybe, then you wouldn’t have this big pile of dust that you’re then trying to relocate with compressed air.
The other big one is people moving dust through the facility. So, they take, and they’ll use compressed air to blow it into a pile. And then they take and they’ll shovel it onto a conveyor or whatnot. And then that conveyor basically takes it all the way through the facility. And by the time that gets to the other end of the facility to dump it outside or dispose of it or whatnot, they’ve lost half of it all through like leaking conveyors and whatnot, all through the place. So, before you start cleaning, it’s like, you should figure out where your dust is coming from and fix that. And it’s amazing. I’m like, you could just spend a day patching holes and it would probably save you a week’s worth of cleaners.
So, my favorite story about compressed air cleanup. We talked to a potential customer who, they’re in the grain industry and they supply material to one of the large chip manufacturers, like potato chip manufacturers. And he told me they spend $250,000 a year, a quarter million dollars, bringing in water to cool the compressors that they use in their cleanup program.
Then why wouldn’t they just spend that money to fix their dust collection and where the dust is coming from?
That’s a great question.
That’s a $250,000 question.
And I think was the first question I asked. But yeah, I think people just get into this mindset of like, well, this is how we do it. And we have a documented process that is an answer to our insurance’s questions and is posted somewhere in the building. And if I had to go find it, I could to show the OSHA inspector that we have a process. But they just do it. And that’s it. And you’re not even getting into the labor question, and the safety question, and opportunity costs and all of that. It’s just like, nope, we pay a lot of money for water to cool stuff down.
I think that that’s why sometimes having the external people come in to do something like a DHA or whatnot, and then you have that external person that just stands there and goes, why? Like, why? Like, okay, so what’s your cleanup process? And then they go through and whatnot. It’s like, cool, but why do you do it this way? Or the fact that it’s like…people like to clean where they can reach, right? So, a lot of times walls are cleaned to about the seven foot mark. And then after that, they get like this caking. Another thing that drives me crazy, which is not related to compressed air, is people like to paint surfaces the same color as the dust.
If you can’t see it, it’s not there.
Yeah, like I don’t know how many wood or grain facilities I’ve been in that are painted beige. And it’s like, go with the green or blue or red or anything so you can see the dust. But so, I don’t know how many times I’ve been in a plant where I’m like, well why are your walls clean only to seven feet? They’re like, well we have a cleaning program and they’re supposed to clean. I’m like, they’re supposed to, yeah, but they’re clearly not.
That was my next question for you, is how well do you trust a written housekeeping plan? Like, do you put a lot of faith that those are actually happening and getting done?
I think you can tell, right? So, if you stand there and you’re standing down on the production floor and you’re looking up at all the open web steel joists and you’re like, cool, from standing on the floor to looking up there, it looks like it’s about an inch, which probably means it’s about two. That’s usually the gauge, right? Like, it’s usually twice as thick as what you think it is. And I’m like, if it’s two inches thick, there’s something, you know, you’re not cleaning or you can look at the walls and see it or on stuff that’s sitting around, like equipment in stores or whatnot that’s sitting out in the aisle way, or boxes that nobody’s moved. And when you look at it, you’re like, well, this dust has been here a while, you know, and it’s just…You can just kind of tell. One of the things I recommend is the pie plate method for cleaning. And so, you just go and buy a whole bunch of pie plates and take a piece of masking tape and write the time and the date that you put them in a location and then make a map as to where they are. And put them in all kinds of spots that you wouldn’t normally think: under conveyors and on top of bins and whatnot, and make sure that everyone knows not to touch them. And then when you can’t read the tape then that’s your cleaning window, right? And so, then from that you can figure out whether or not you’re cleaning too frequently or not frequently. Everyone likes to do everything on a week-long cycle, where it’s like on Monday we do area A and then Tuesday, and rinse and repeat, right? Week after week. Well, area A might need to be cleaned only once every 10 days, but area B might need to be cleaned every third day. But everyone just does it, you know, rinse and repeat, Monday to Sunday.
I like that. There’s a lot of wisdom in that one right there. Make it simple.
Go bake some pies.
Make it simple, some dust pies.
Well, and I’m like, it doesn’t have to be pie plates, but they’re just cheap. Cheap and easy. You could do it really with hunks of cardboard or whatnot, but they tend to be a little more flammable and you know, not necessarily a good thing.
Yeah, we shouldn’t introduce another hazard where there’s already dust.
Yeah, exactly. Well, in pie plates, they’ve got the edge so that if you do have any kind of crosswinds or whatnot, so.
So where have you seen technology come in recently? Do you see any new technologies or innovation changing the game in the dust space? You’ve been doing this for a little while.
Yeah, getting old. So, the big thing, we use it now. The big thing I would say is 3D scanning has changed stuff. That’s more so for system design, right? So instead of just being like, yeah, this should fit, now when you go in and you can 3D scan something then you know if a pipe is going to fit. The scanner we use, we’re not looking for huge accuracy because we’re not doing pipe spools offshore or something like that, right? We’re putting in ducting, so plus or minus a quarter of an inch. And you can weave things in and around existing stuff. And we’ve also used it for vessel strength analysis. So you can take and scan your vessel and then build your 3D model out of it. It’s cut down things a lot. The other thing that makes it really handy is we’ll take and take the 3D scan of the existing stuff, put all the 3D design in that scan, and then do like a walkthrough with the client. And then they can be like, well, we need to bring a forklift in here. We need access here for maintenance. And then it’s a lot different when you can see it all put together. When it’s, you know, build it in paper as opposed to build it in steel. It’s a lot easier to change it when it’s just a bunch of dots on the screen, right?
Oh yeah. No, we get that. We do some system design stuff and give them approximations of where things are going to go. And then the first thing they say is like, well, actually on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays, we pull the forklift over, or we put the lift over here, or we flip this thing upside down. And so, you can’t put it there. So no, we get the frustration and challenge of working around other people’s stuff.
So where do you think it’s going from here? Where do you see technology playing into this? Is AI going to have a place in the dust world? Where are we going next?
I think AI will have a place in everything. know even. So, in all my spare time in the last couple of years, I’ve been working on DHA software. So, how to basically take a DHA and what you need to do and change it into more or less a checklist to then have it to create like an 80% automated report.
But I think eventually it’ll get to a point…so, in that two years that we were working on it, I mean, AI wasn’t even around really two years ago. And now it’s gotten to the point where it’s probably going to be where you’d walk in with some form of tablet, just kind of show it around and then it can spit out whatever your deficiencies are.
I think that’ll be the case in terms of assessments. And I don’t know how long it’ll take to get there, because it all depends. Our industry, the dust industry, isn’t known for its innovation. It’s known for its old dudes thinking that this is the way we do stuff. So, I think it’ll take a while before it gets to that point, unless some of us young whippersnappers maybe take it on and do it.
But I think eventually it’ll get to something like that. But in terms of the design of systems and new system stuff, I don’t think it’s going to change a whole heck of a lot. I mean, most of the times it’s a box with filters, right?
Yeah. So, if we’re walking into a plant, and this is something that we just covered a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago at this point, what’s the number one thing that we should be telling our clients? Like when they say, hey, we’ve got a dust problem, what should we be looking for? What should they be looking for? How do we handle these things?
The two biggest things with the dust problem I find are hoods and fans. Hoods are notoriously undersized and placed in the wrong spot, and fans are notoriously undersized because everyone’s trying to do things as cheap as possible. Dust collection is really, as a whole, poorly done. And so, people tend to forget things when they’re sizing a fan. And so, you can even have really bad hoods. Don’t ever quote me on that. Don’t cut that down to a voice clip of, you can have bad hoods. No, Diane said you can have bad…
That’s the title of the video right there.
So, you can have “less than ideal” hoods. How about that? You can have less than ideal hoods and then have a really super wonderful fan that’s sized maybe even a little over capacity, and your hoods are forgiven because your fan will take up the slack for you.
But if your fan…I wanted to write an article that was called, Does Your Fan Suck or Does It Suck? But I was told that that wasn’t acceptable. Anyway, so if your fan sucks but doesn’t suck, then your whole system will fall apart. So, the first thing is to figure out what your fan needs to do and figure out whether your fan’s doing it.
Very cool. Yeah, one of the more common things, because we’re adjacent to all the dust collection stuff, and so we hear a lot and get a lot of questions about it. And so, we dig into it a good bit. But we get people who’ve updated the process, or they’ve linked in other parts of the system, but they have not updated their collection design. And so, it becomes undersized, or it’s not pulling from the right areas at the right speeds or whatever. So, yeah.
Well, and everyone just likes to just look at the ducting and be like, we can just slap a duct on there. It’ll be fine. If I see one more vacuum line stuck on a dust collector, I’m sure I’m going to lose my mind. Because everyone’s like, well, they’re both used for suction. It’s like, yeah, but they’re different. They’re very different.
Yeah, if you design for that, that may be one thing. If you just add them on, it doesn’t work so well. Not so good.
No, it certainly does not. Because, you know, dust collection systems are high volume, low static pressure, and vacuum systems are high static pressure, low volume. So, if you take and you put 40 feet of this two inch hose on your dust collection system, it’s so much static pressure, and your poor fan just coughs and dies. And it’s like, no.
Yeah, there was a powdered ink company, I believe it was, in the Northeast that had designed a brand new collection system, and it was in like day two of operation, and they had an explosion. But it was because they had added all these floor sweeps in, and it was pulling all the pressure off, and so they had no suction pressure and just everything clogged up and backed up and then they had a boom. Yeah, you’ve got to design for that stuff. You can’t just go sticking in suction points wherever you want.
No, but people like to. I remember I was doing a presentation, I think, at the Powder & Bulk Solid Show. No, it was a webinar online. Anyway, and I put up all these bad pictures of all this slapped together ducting. And I was like, this is in your facility. And the fun thing with a webinar is you can make all these outlandish comments, and nobody can answer and say anything to you, right? So, I was like, this is in your facilities. And then I was like, and if you’re telling me you don’t have duct tape on your ducting, you’re lying. I know you’re lying. And so, one of the guys that I know, he was partaking in the webinar, and he was like, I almost spit my coffee across the room. He was like, I can’t believe that you were sitting there just calling people out. And no one could defend themselves. But it’s true. There’s so much duct tape and slap it on-ism in dust collection that it’s scary and sad.
It is. No plant is perfect. Everybody’s got fugitive dust. You’ve got to deal with it. Got to address it. All right. So, I think we are about out of time. This has been a ton of fun. I really appreciate you taking time out of your crazy busy schedule because I know you got a lot going on because people actually want to work with you as opposed to a lot of other engineers. And we would love to have you on again in the future. And hopefully we’ll bump into you at a trade show out there somewhere in the dust world.
Sure, well, thanks so much for having me on guys and yeah, I’d love to do it again whenever we can.
And where can people find you and follow you and keep up with all the great articles that you’re writing?
So, I tend to write a couple of articles a year for Powder & Bulk Solids. And then I’m usually at the powder show. I usually give a couple of the technical talks sessions there. I also write for Biomass Canada, I think is what it is. And I did, I think, six articles for them this year. So it was like a whole series of stuff. And I also did some writing, I think, for processing and controls. I think there was like three magazines. It was a busy writing year. I do it all while I sit on planes. And then you can find me on LinkedIn. So, Diane Cave. I don’t post on LinkedIn too much because, well, I’m busy. But I’ve been meaning to put a post on there about doing hard things. Because I just came back about a month ago. I climbed Kilimanjaro.
Nice!
And yeah, so I think doing hard things in your personal life translates into doing hard things in your professional life, and it makes things easier. So, I was going to make a post about that.
Absolutely. That should have been the intro. It should have started with that. Here’s a tip, Diane. Next time you do a podcast, lead with that. Start with that. Don’t close with that.
Lead with that? It’s like, so last week, I climbed a mountain. But otherwise, yeah, I just always kind of pop up. I had this one guy tell me, every time I turned around last month, he was like, your articles were here, your webinars were there. And he was like, you’re just kind of everywhere. So.
We’ll do our best to make sure they’re plastered all over the screen so people can click on them and find them and we’ll put you on our LinkedIn too. But it’s been a pleasure talking to you today.
Thanks so much, guys, and like I said, I’ll send you the other article that we were talking about.
Great, we’ll get it up. All right. So, if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, thanks for watching. Thanks for checking us out again as we attempted to climb combustible dust Kilimanjaro with Diane Cave. So be sure to share it with your friends and family and anyone that deals with combustible dust so they can stay in the loop as well. Give us a thumbs up, like, subscribe, all that good stuff. I’m Jordan. Thanks for watching the SonicAire OnAire podcast.
See ya!