Not that I know of. I've learned the council has someone known as the clerk of works who is responsible for inspecting the safety of things in the council so the janitors have arranged for him to come out and see it.
Ventilation in Chemical Store
- Thread starter captainlabmagnet
- Start date
Likewise, and the ventilation is going full whack.
I use mine for storing desiccators with cobalt chloride paper inside
When I started here mine was the same, was the first thing I got sorted, oh and people being able to activate the key turn fire alarms in the department and school. It didn't occur to anyone that no one here could actually activate the alarm due to not having any keys, now every member of staff in the school have a key. They must have loved me starting
How many risk assessments must have been carried out over the years, even external fire risk assessors, and nothing noticed? 
Same here, no ventilation whatsoeverOur issue is...we don't have any!
It's a legal requirement for 24/7 extraction. Once it's in a risk assessment they cannot ignore it, or the head could possibly face jail time due to an incident. My advice to anyone is get it down on official paperwork (risk assessment).
Update: I've had someone come out to see the ventilation, and it seems like it's going to be sorted. They copied me into an email sent to technicians in other schools, and questions were being asked about what needed to be done and why—questions I'd already answered for them multiple times. It sounds like they didn't believe me. This is something that happens quite a bit, and I think it's because I'm younger than most people I work with. I can't complain though; by the sounds of it, some people on here are doing without ventilation entirely, so at least it's getting sorted. I'll update again when it's actually fixed.
That's great news, if not a little frustrating.
There's only so much that I can do. I've done my part so now all I can do is wait
I have ventilated cabinets for corrosives and flammables.
Ventilations runs continuously (unless there's a power cut).
The bottles in my corrosives cabinet are always covered in a layer of what I presume to be ammonium chloride though.
Is this perhaps because they are in polystop bottles?
I'm considering changing hydrochloric acid and ammonia to screw-top bottles but am concerned about a potential build-up of pressure.
Ventilations runs continuously (unless there's a power cut).
The bottles in my corrosives cabinet are always covered in a layer of what I presume to be ammonium chloride though.
Is this perhaps because they are in polystop bottles?
I'm considering changing hydrochloric acid and ammonia to screw-top bottles but am concerned about a potential build-up of pressure.
I'm assuming you're talking about the concentrates - mine are all stored in screw topped bottles but I don't think you need to worry about pressure build up.
You could perhaps place a layer of parafilm over the top and then screw the lid over that to keep fumes from escaping. Not sure if fumes will redissolve into solution overtime but if you are worried about pressure build-up you could start opening the bottles weekly in a fume cupboard to alleviate it.
Alternatively you could just place your bottles in resealable plastic bags or containers with screw top lids (I have these old BDH containers). This way there is a second layer to 'catch' the fumes and you can just release them into the fume cupboard whenever you use them.
When the red 'acid-resistant' lids [GL45 size] became available, I decanted my conc acids (& my 5M 'strong stock' dilutions) into the 1L Simax grad' bottles that come with these; a vast improvement in fumes / deposits resulted. I've since put all my HCl dilutions in s/c bottles, too, though not the red ones...