Glenn sent in this great tip about emergency lighting in the shop.
With Safety Week here again I wanted to give everyone something to think about. Here is the scenario that I think we can all relate toâ?¦. You get to have some shop time and evening is approaching. Your shop doesn’t have as much natural light as you would like but you work with what you have. The project you are working on has parts in all different locations including the stock you have on the floor. You even needed to rearrange equipment to make everything fit, thank god for mobile bases. You have all your tools at the ready, router, sander, chisels, and dust collection hose.
Everything is going great, you are putting a nice decorative edge on your piece and suddenly the power goes out. There are no lights and it is dark outside so you have no light to see. You can probably set the router down safely after it stops but can you remember where everything is to get out of the shop or to a flashlight without falling or hitting something sharp? You could just stand there and wait for the power to come back on and hope it won’t take hours.
If you really had your safety in mind you would have put up an emergency light. If you look around in commercial buildings you will see them on the walls or ceiling. They are a battery-operated light that will turn on when they lose AC power. The prices of these lights are very low and make a good investment. You can even support TWW by shopping on Amazon.com. I recommend the mounted style, as the plug-in flashlight units tend to walk away and end up in the kids bedroom or kitchen when you need them in the shop. Remember to stay safe and plan ahead to stay that way all year long.
Glenn (Retired F.D. Captain)
Usually I’m a play-it-safe-guy and wanted to buy an emergency light for my flat when I saw them in a catalogue recently. But then I made some calculations, bringing me to the conclusion that it’s nonsense for my situation.
Power outages are so rare these days, that the batteries in the lights will die several times before their first use. Here in Germany a real outage (longer than just a few seconds) statistically occurs only every few years. The likeliness of being at home and awake during that time reduces it to about once in a lifetime, let alone the chance of being in your shop. Personally I haven’t witnessed an outage (of any length) in the whole 30 years of my life.
Things are surely different for those who live in 3rd-world places or in remote regions with equal power-grids. But generally I consider it good practice not to let dangerous (ie. sharp) stuff lie around at random, because even with lights on they are hazardous and can make harmless accidents really worse (eg. stumbling and trying to find hold somewhere). So I put chisels and knives (in the kitchen as well) always where they belong when I’m not working with them at this very moment. And for the tools I’m currently working with I know the location blindfolded.
regards, Sven
We have a couple of small LED emergency lights in our home, but I never thought about having them in the shop. This is a great tip. The lights that we have are great and can generate a lot of light for such a small unit. They would be great if the power went out in the shop.
I don’t know about you old-timers ;), but a cell phone makes a great emergency flash light…it’s battery powered, always in my pocket, and puts off just enough light to step over those salvaged pallet pieces with the nails sticking out of them between me and the door.
I have been preaching emergency lighting for a while now and can’t seem to get people to listen. I hope this post gets a lot of attention. My lesson from this is…
WORST CASE SCENARIO OF ALL TIME!
My garage shop has no windows. Like most of us I have added dedicated outlets and breakers for my power tools. This means the tools are on one breaker while the lights are on another. I was in the middle of a cut at the table saw when some how the breaker that runs the lights trips. I am standing at a running table saw half way through a cut in PITCH BLACK. What do you do? You poop yourself thats what you do. I closed my shop until a backup light was installed. The lights in my shop are on the same breaker as the garage door opener which means all I had to so was screw the back up light to the ceiling and plug it in to the garage door opener outlet. I am willing to bet that there are MANY garage shop woodworkers that are in the EXACT same breaker scheme that I am in. This could happen to you! The danger is much more than tripping on a tool.
I got this one at Lowes but I paid $30 where Amazon is only half that.
http://www.amazon.com/Profile-.....038;sr=1-7
Excellent advice Waid. I was debating how to solve this problem. My tools keep running while the breaker for my lights goes out. I hadn’t even thought to check the garage door opener. If it’s on a the same circuit as my lights I’ll do exactly what you have done. What an elegant solutions.
Thanks again!
Kurt Thompson
Also, be sure to have your lights on separate breakers from your outlets. I’ll have to look into those Glow Lux lamps.
We recently changed out the 4′ florescent light bulbs in our shop to ones from Glow-lux that glow in the dark after being turned off. It is like having a bunch of huge glow sticks on the ceiling after we turn off the lights at night. You can easily see enough to step over any stock or junk on the floor.
Now that sounds awesome! Never heard of these things.
thewoodwhisperer,
They have been around for a few years. I heard about them from engadget.com a back in 2004/5. Unfortunately they are rather spendy for a home work shop. The company that developed them is located near by and must have donated them to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I bought them there for $8 a bulb (used) rather than the $30 they go for online. I did not even know what I had until I got home and turned them off :)
BoorT
Yet another safety issue I had never even considered in the shop. I think by the time safety week is over, I might be completely paranoid to set foot in my shop from now on! But seriously, this is a great idea and something I never even thought about before.
Not just the power going out but blowing a breaker. The most important thing of that scenario is to turn off the router before the power comes back on.
One good reason I put a magnetic switch on my table saw. It won’t start when the power comes back on
I agree with Bill.