Go Small Or Go Home: Should You Choose Basic Or Advanced Confined Space Training?
Whether your work takes you inside sewers, gas pipelines, deactivated boilers or other decidedly compact areas, working in confined spaces can be an arduous and dangerous task, and anyone seeking to work in these unique environments must receive legally recognised training on how to safely work inside them. However, training course providers operate both basic and advanced confined space training courses, and deciding which type of course is right for your needs can be difficult.
Why should I choose basic confined space training?
Basic confined space training courses, as their name would suggest, cover the basics of how to safely, effectively and legally work within a limited variety of confined spaces. These courses are generally quite short—some training providers provide courses that can be completed in a single day—and considerably less expensive than more advanced training options.
Despite the short length of these courses, training providers manage to pack a surprising amount of teaching and information into them. Over the course of your basic training you will be taught how to properly identify and conduct risk assessments of confined work spaces, how to enter and exit them safely and how to properly use the most commonly used pieces of confined space equipment (such as lighting rigs, lifting tripods and safety harnesses). You will also be thoroughly briefed on basic emergency procedures.
Because these courses are short and inexpensive, but do not cover the more complex aspects of confined space work, they are ideally suited to workers who find themselves working in confined spaces on a periodic rather than regular basis. This includes plumbers, electricians, electrical engineers, emergency services personnel, transport industry workers and workplace safety inspectors. Thee courses are also well suited to managerial-level staff working at mines and other workplaces involving confined spaces, allowing them to personally inspect working practises and output safely.
Why should I choose advanced confined space training?
Advanced confined space training is generally significantly more expensive than basic courses and is conducted over a number of days depending on your needs and prior proficiency in confined space work. Naturally, they cover all the topics included in a basic training course, but also include more involved training on certain aspects of confined space work.
Advanced confined space training courses are designed with the dedicated confined space worker in mind and cover topics such as toxic gas detection, vertical entry and exit into confined spaces and how to properly and legally distribute entry permits for confined spaces. You will also become familiar with more advanced confined space equipment, such as fall arrest systems, gas detectors and electrical isolation equipment.
These thorough confined space training courses are aimed at employees and contractors who work primarily in confined spaces, and these courses are particularly useful for utility workers operating within sewers, water pipelines and other hazardous confined spaces. These courses are also particularly valuable for workplace safety inspectors, risk assessment professionals and other independent contractors who may find themselves working within a wide variety of different confined areas.