Pedestal Fan Safety Concerns: Have You Found a Cost-Effective Solution?

Dear All,

Please have a look at the attached file. Has anyone faced such an issue before? What is the best, most cost-effective solution to safeguard these pedestal fans? I welcome your views and suggestions.

Thank you.

Dear Dipilji,

In my view, covering with wire mesh is the best possible solution. Otherwise, fingers may come in contact with the rotating fan blade through the protective cage, which may lead to amputation. There have been cases in industries where workers have been injured while trying to redirect the airflow of a rotating pedestal fan.

Thanks,
Abhay

The pedestal fan should be secured properly at its base to avoid toppling over. Use of wire mesh, as advised by a learned member, can be considered. Position the fan in such a way that people do not go near it. The earthing and electrical wiring need to be in good condition so that no electrical shocks take place upon touching it. A signboard warning people not to put their hands, etc., can be considered.

Hello Dipil,

What's the issue vis-a-vis the PPT? Abhay & Nathrao have presumed the visible aspects of the situation as they saw in the PPT & gave their suggestions. Is the problem different? Your mention of the words 'safeguard these pedestal fans' can also mean ways to prevent theft. Please give the complete details so that you get the right & actionable suggestions.

Regards, TS

Dear All,

Thank you for sharing your inputs. I am trying to provide the guard, as shown in the attached pictures, as a solution to the query raised.

@TS: The issue was with the guarding only. The existing mesh was allowing people's hands/fingers to reach the rotating parts.

Please review the positioning of the fans on the wall. Additionally, please install the safety mesh as suggested in the earlier messages. This will help in two ways: preventing contact with objects or persons and protecting the fan cover in case of incidents.

Dear Dipil and Abhay, I very much regret to say that I am somehow not happy with the approach.

Machine Guarding Principles

This is an issue if the problem still persists with modern pedestal fans. There are certain principles in machine guarding. In the case of pedestal fan blade guards, in the past, the gap was wider, and fingers could have come in contact with the rotating blades. Manufacturers were made answerable. Of late, please check again.

Allowable Machine Guarding Clearances

- Within two inches: openings allow access to less than ½ inch diameter.
- Within four inches: openings allow access to no larger than ½ inch diameter.
- Four to fifteen inches: excludes objects larger than 2 inches in diameter or guard has 1-inch wide slats.
- Fifteen to twenty inches: Guardrails.

There may be thousands of fans in use. It is the absolute responsibility of the manufacturer to ensure the safety of the user of their products. We at the user end are not supposed to modify every fan to ensure safety.

As responsible professionals or even as customers of the product, it is our legitimate right to demand absolute safety from the product we purchase from the market. In case this pedestal fan we purchased is suspected to be unsafe in any manner, it is our duty to bring it up to the manufacturer or supplier and demand a permanent design change, which will be the solution.

Providing a makeshift arrangement in one fan you use does not solve the problems with thousands of fans ignorant people use.

Hope if you think deeply, you may join me with this approach.

Regards,
Kesava Pillai

Dear Sir ,
I am positively agree with your thoughts ... I always try to think safety with large picture but this time I failed and realized that there is a lot of scope for my improvement while making safety recommendations. For above case , on the basis of available information and condition I just suggested ... But after reading your comments I realize
Thanks again sir.
Abhay

Dear Sir
Thanks.
These fans was very old one. So was trying to find out the best way out to resolve the issue and come up with the cheap and best solution to the problem. We even tried to provide wire mesh over the existing guards so as to protect them.
Your suggestions would be really helpful for the new procurement. We can ask the manufacturer to supply the safe pedestal fans. This I will take up with procurement team, so far not did the same.

Dear All,

Good morning!

My name is Vishal. I would like to share some corrective actions to prevent pedestal fan accidents. In our industry, we have experienced some serious accidents involving pedestal fans. To prevent such incidents, we have installed the pedestal fans on the wall by making modifications.