2021-05-26

Decluttering your storage and work areas with safety in mind

I usually write these articles at the end of the week, when I'm starting to think about weekend projects around the house. Having said that, many industrial safety activities can also be applied to the home. One important industrial task is housekeeping, and every industry has a written safety procedure for it. Whether we call it spring cleaning, decluttering, or just tidying, it's all housekeeping and it's all good.

Have a junk room and bins

I think it's impossible to have a completely tidy house. My first rule of tidying is to have a junk room, or junk closet, i.e. a place to store your extra stuff and projects that are on the go. For basement storage, I'm a big fan of plastic storage bins. I've had the best luck with the ones that are not transparent as they have heavier walls. They don't crack and you can stack them.

My only problem with bins is that I forget what I put in them, and I don't bother to update the label when I've moved things in or out. When I run out of room in the bins, I don't buy a new bin but instead I decide what needs to get disposed of from the existing bins.

You don't need to spend a lot of money on storage. I'm a big fan of the "banana box," which is great for storing anything in a dry basement or for closet storage. These are the cardboard boxes that the grocery stores receive bananas in. I've used them at home and I've shipped things all over the country with them. They are tough and engineered to be stacked from floor to ceiling in a shipping container. Another great feature is that they're also cheap or even free.

My messy garage

Perhaps you have a garage workshop. Right now, my garage workshop is a bit of a mess. The work bench is full of tools and my last remaining supply of grocery bags (which I miss since they were really handy for small clean ups).

Many injuries in the workplace are caused by something called "falls on the same level," which is usually when someone has tripped over something and broken a bone or sprained an ankle or, worst of all, they've had a head injury. It's actually the second most common workplace accident.

So, for my garage cleanup, the main thing I need to do is make some floor space. A luxury that I have for creating more floor space is to have a shed. I use it for storing my bulky stuff like winter tires, wood for projects and yard equipment.

One thing that I don't keep in my garage is my gasoline container. I built a wooden garbage box years ago, and I found out that if I put my gas can in it the mice stay out. I assume that they probably don't like the gas smell. In any case, I haven't seen a mouse in my garbage box since I put the gas can inside. If you do this, make sure your garbage box is placed away from your house and preferably in a shady spot.

Shelving creates floor space

One organizing tip for "making" more floor space is to buy or build some shelving. The sturdier the better, and please secure it to the wall so it doesn't fall over. If you are buying shelving, get heavier units than you think you will need, so you have less chance of overloading it.

There are many organizing strategies, some complicated ones and some simple ones. An extreme example is one I saw while doing projects in an aircraft repair hangar, where literally every tool had its own cut out pocket in various toolboxes. This is a safety strategy for the aircraft repair industry that allows the repair tech to visually confirm that all tools were accounted for at the end of the job, and they are not left inside an aircraft engine or wing.

This is a bit overkill for me. I might do it for a while, but I wouldn't keep it up for long.

My simple garage tidying strategy is that I have everything more or less in its place so I can generally locate everything, and I don't need to spend a lot of time putting tools away after a project. It has worked for me so I'm sticking to it.

On my top shelf I have a small plastic bin with tops, for light stuff like tarps, ropes, electrical cords etc. I have to reach for these things, so I don't want to risk having something heavy drop on me.

The middle shelf has plastic bins without tops, for heavier items like car tools and power hand tools. This way I can quickly rummage through each bin to find what I need. I even have a cardboard box for hammers, since a plastic bin would break if I threw a hammer into it.

The heaviest things - like my chainsaw, car jack and anvil - go under the shelving. I can drag them out without lifting anything and, after all, who wants to lift an anvil.

Paint cans and chemical jugs (like antifreeze) also go on the floor, also under the shelving. They are protected there, and if they spill they won't splash on me.

For small, finicky things, such as electrical items, measuring tools, fasteners, etc., I have a cheap, multi-drawer plastic storage unit. My grandfather used to use glass jars for this type of stuff, but this is a bit too "old school" for me, and since I don't know exactly what I'll store in each drawer the container needs to be big enough to hold things of a variety of sizes.

One idea that I borrowed from the aircraft repair guys is not to have a special area for a toolbox. In the aircraft hangar, all the technicians' toolboxes are on wheels and they would just wheel them all over the place, to each airplane, depending on the job. I have a good-sized plastic toolbox for my wrenches, screwdrivers, not a fancy metal one. My garage floor is my main work area, not my workbench, so I put the toolbox on a plastic bin to get it off the ground and I just drag the whole thing around (the bin with toolbox on top) to where I'm doing the project. When I'm done, it goes in a corner and out of the way.

Now that I think of it, maybe I'll build a wheeled platform for my toolbox on its plastic bin, kind of like the aircraft mechanics. There's another project to add to my list.

James Golemiec is a Canadian Registered Safety Professional with more than eight years' experience coordinating and managing complex safety systems at manufacturing facilities, and performing inspections on project job sites across Canada.