We’re kicking off the new season at the International Powder and Bulk Solids Show in Chicago 2025. In our first podcast episode, Donovan sits down with Marc Hodapp from Fire & Risk Alliance to discuss Dust Hazard Analyses (DHA)—what they are, when you need one, and what to do once you’ve got your results. They dive into key metrics like KST and PMAX for combustible dust, and Marc shares how Fire & Risk Alliance can help interpret these values and guide you toward the right safety solutions. To learn more about Fire & Risk Alliance visit: https://fireriskalliance.com
Narrator: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
Donovan: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dusty Jobs podcast. We’re here at Powder Bulk. It’s an interesting, it’s a great show.
Mark: It’s been a great show so far.
Donovan: Joining us right now is Mark Hodapp. Did I say that right?
Mark: You did.
Donovan: Fire Risk Alliance, right?
Mark: That is correct.
Donovan: Fire Risk Alliance. So, we’re here. We saw you guys’ last time at the show. This isn’t your first show. You guys come to this all the time.
Mark: Yeah, we’ve been here quite a bit. We had a couple of years off there but were happy to be back and see everybody.
Donovan: Well, I think everybody took a couple of years off during COVID it seems like. But the show seems like there’s a ton of people out this year. I’d say if anybody’s out there thinking about coming next time, great time. Lots of great booths.
Mark: Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve been talking about it ourselves internally, and we want to make sure this is an annual thing for us.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: There’s a lot of great people, a lot of great conversations, good networking.
Donovan: So yeah, yeah. So, one of the reasons you guys are here is because of powder bulk, I mean, it’s really the explosive dust show, right? Isn’t that what you’d say? Like, come here, you can learn a lot about it.
Mark: We learn a lot. I mean, for us, you know, in our field, we deal a lot with combustible dust and industrial and manufacturing.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: You know, our company certainly does other things, but myself, that’s what I specialize in.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And so for us, we get to meet everybody who manufactures the equipment that our clients use to understand what’s out there, what we’re going to see in the field.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: Um, get to learn about what’s new and in all the fire and explosion protection and dust collection.
Donovan: People are making new products all the time.
Mark: That’s right.
Donovan: Trying to make things healthier, safer for people who are out there working with some of this dust that’s potentially very dangerous.
Mark: Yeah, that’s and for us, you know, it helps to have a good network to, you know, we’re analyzing and understanding what the hazards are and working with our clients to mitigate those hazards and it’s helpful for us to know who’s out there and what equipment’s available that we can recommend to make them safer.
Donovan: Right. So, and that’s really the backbone of what you do, right? You’ve been doing this for how long now?
Mark: About 16 years.
Donovan: 16 years. This is not your first rodeo.
Mark: It is not. We’ve done somewhere on the order of 300 dust hazard analyses.
Donovan: Wow. We’ve talked about before dust hazard analysis. That’s a new thing. The government’s mandating it. So, give me 10 seconds on what a dust hazard analysis is and what you guys do with that. So, anybody out there who’s never heard of it.
Mark: So, really a dust hazard analysis is to understand if you’re handling combustible dusts.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: And if so, understanding what their hazards are, the actual material hazards and then in your facility understanding what equipment is handling that dust and if there’s fire explosion or flash fire hazards associated with that and same thing in the building. Do you have any future dust? Where does that go? Do you have fire, flash fire and explosion hazards?
Donovan: So, it’s more than just an evaluation of the dust. It’s an evaluation of the full facility and how that dust interacts in that facility. Is that a good way to put it?
Mark: That’s a good way to put it. And you know, the key is really understanding what hazards exist and then how you manage those hazards.
Donovan: Right. And what’s happened over the years. When you go back and you look at some of the large explosions or the large losses that have occurred and still occur, we’re doing better as an industry.
Mark: Yeah. One of the key gaps that’s been identified is people just don’t understand they have these hazards. They don’t necessarily know they have combustible dust.
Donovan: So, what are some of the…So, you’ve done 300 of these. What’s some of the things you’re seeing that’s like most common amongst people that you’re like, you should make sure that that is some… If you have this in your facility, you should have somebody come check it out to see if it’s a potential hazard.
Mark: Yeah. I mean, I would say almost every industry we’ve worked with has combustible dust somewhere.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: If you’re handling bulk solids, particulate solids, you may very well have combustible dust. Anything that is organic is going to generally produce combustible dust, metals. So, a lot of times people don’t understand that their dusts are combustible. More often than not, they are. And even industries like you wouldn’t think of like concrete production. You say concrete stone. There’s no way there’s combustible dust in it. There are combustible additives added to concrete mixtures.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And so, a lot of times I’d say, you know, if you’re handling bulk solids at all, you should really do a dust hazard analysis. That could be as simple as just saying, “we’ve looked at this, we don’t have any combustible dust. We can stop there.”
Donovan: So, okay. So, besides just calling an organization like yourselves, what’s step one to getting that dust? I mean, is it getting your dust tested? Is that step one or is there a step before that? I mean, tell me where I should start. If I’m thinking, I need to get this checked out. What’s the first thing I should do?
Mark: So, generally speaking, I think a good starting point is to kind of gather an inventory of what you’re handling.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: You can kind of start with an initial screening looking at like safety data sheets, but they’re unreliable in terms of the information that’s on there.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: There are some websites you can go to that have publicly available dust data. There’s a website hosted by basically Germany’s Virgin of Osha.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: It’s called the Guestess Database. They have about 7,000 data points that you can go browse through. And so, if you find your dust on there and it’s explosible, it’s a combustible dust,
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: That’s a pretty good initial screening. And then from there, testing is an important step, but a lot of times that’s where I say it’s good to engage somebody, whether it be internal or consultant externally like myself, to kind of help work through all right, we think we have combustible dust, or we know we do. What’s the best way to test?
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: Because you don’t want to just go out and send any old sample off for testing. You may not get the data you need.
Donovan: No, just put it in a paper baggage or facility and light it on fire, right? You got to…there’s proper ways to do this.
Mark: There’s proper ways to test and also proper ways to sample to make sure that you’re getting good value out of the testing that you do.
Donovan: Okay. So what…okay. So if I’m getting a dust sample together, what’s the proper way to do that? I mean, do I just go to…If I have a dust pointer, I just go to the bottom of it and then scoop up whatever? Do I sweep it off the floor? What am I looking for here?
Mark: That’s a good question. And it really kind of depends what you’re trying to understand about your dust. So if you’re in a facility, let’s say you’re making gypsum board.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: Gypsum production involves a lot of gypsum, which is non-combustible, but they also use starch and sugar.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And so if you’re trying to understand, it can be quite dusty. So if you’re trying to understand, do I have building deflagration hazards, you might be interested in sampling some of the dust off the floor, but you want to make sure you’re taking it from a location, maybe closer to where you have your starch or sugar.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: And so sometimes it’s appropriate to sample from surfaces or floors. But if you’re saying, “Okay, I need to put in a new dust collection system. How do I know if I have muscled dust? How do I size my explosion protection?” Then it could be good to take samples from a drum of an existing dust collector, for example, that’s going to be replaced.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: So, where you sample, how you sample, understanding the composition of materials. If you are in a process where you have different batches or powder blending facilities, you may have hundreds or thousands of different recipes.
Donovan: Oh, that’s true.
Mark: And so you look through your recipes and say, “All right, what do we know about these materials?
Donovan: So Monday might not be too bad, but whatever you’re mixing on Wednesday, kaboom!
Mark: And that’s why I recommend the earlier you have someone who’s had some expertise in this, whether internally or externally, it’s good, because dust testing is relatively affordable, but you want to make sure you’re still getting your money’s worth out of the test.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where guys like you who have been doing this for a long time can help make sure you’re not wasting your time, wasting your money, getting things tested that you don’t even need to get tested, or maybe getting back the wrong results.
Mark: That’s right.
Donovan: Because I know for us, that building dust collectors, the KST scale is something that is tricky for people to understand it.
Mark: Yes.
Donovan: Because a KST of zero…Means you don’t have an explosible dust.
Mark: No problem.
Donovan: But you have a KST of five…
Mark: With some gray areas, it could still be combustible dust.
Donovan: Right.
Donovan: But then if you have a KST of 150, you have a KST of 202, that even though that doesn’t seem like that’s that big of a jump, that scale makes a difference…On our side, I know, makes a difference on how you protect that dust collector.
Mark: It does. And that’s a good…I mean, two points there I think are important is one is KST and P-MAX, which is what a lot of folks think of when you think about dust testing and what comes out of it. Those are important numbers. And they are a big driver on explosion, system sizing, and design. But they’re only one indication of a hazard. And that’s kind of a misconception I see a lot. I’ve had a lot of clients I’ve worked with over the years that said, “Well, we only have a KST of 60 or 45. We’ve been told in the past that we don’t have to worry about that.”
Donovan: Right.
Mark: “It’s very mild. We don’t have to worry about that.” And there are other properties of a dust that can make things uniquely hazardous, like how easy it is to ignite.
Donovan: True.
Mark: You may have a dust as a KST of 100, but a very low ignition energy. That dust is probably going to have a much higher likelihood of actually having an incident than another dust with a KST of 80 or 140, rather a higher KST, but a very high ignition energy.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And so I think when you look at where accidents actually occur and where the risk actually is, the KST is one piece of the puzzle, but it doesn’t give you the whole picture.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: And similarly, you may have certain situations where a dust is not explosible, but could still present a fire hazard.
Donovan: Oh, yeah.
Mark: And so maybe you don’t need explosion protection, or maybe you added it as an abundance of caution, but maybe your fire protection considerations are still important.
Donovan: Right.
Donovan: I always like to use wood as the example. It’s great for that because sawdust is way different than a 2×4.
Mark: That’s right. Which is way different than wood flower.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: Or what you get from sanding MDF.
Donovan: Exactly. So because those are, you know, you’re dealing with one dust that is still, you know, I might have a 2×4 laying there. That’s a definitely fire hazard. It could potentially catch on fire.
Mark: It’ll burn.
Donovan: But you have wood flower. It could burn, but it can also explode and feed to a lot more harm.
Mark: That’s right.
Donovan: So, Yeah. So you guys can come in, start taking those data points, and then for a DHA, you are going to compile. Do you get a report at the end? What’s the end result?
Mark: Yeah. So kind of we like to think about combustible dust hazard management is really kind of a life cycle.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: DHA is usually a first step.
Donovan: Gotcha.
Mark: And so what our deliverable for a DHA is is usually ideally we’d be involved early on to kind of help guide the testing and sampling project, part of the project, and then usually our deliverable is some sort of a report depending on what stage the project’s in.
Donovan: Gotcha.
Mark: And what that really does is that creates a clear picture for our clients of where their hazards are.
Donovan: And that’s on maybe a new construction or replacement of a collector?
Mark: That’s an excellent question. I mean, I kind of think of DHA’s in three phases. A lot of times it’s a retroactive requirement.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: A lot of times you can be doing a DHA on an existing facility, and you’re going to be finding gaps generally for things that were installed a long time ago or may have been grandfathered in.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: But there’s still kind of a general requirement to mitigate risk to the extent possible or identify action plans for what you do over the next five or ten years. Plan your future projects, plan equipment upgrades.
Donovan: Yep.
Mark: To bring yourself into compliance and a higher level of safety.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: We also do a lot of DHA’s as part of new projects.
Donovan: Yep.
Mark: And I always say if you’re doing a DHA as part of a new project, that’s where you have the most value. Because it’s relatively straightforward and you’re also making sure that your design works well from a safety standpoint and the performance standpoint. Is your dust collection going to work with you and what you need to do as your facility or process grows to make sure you have long-term combustible dust management?
Donovan: Right.
Mark: Are you right sizing your safety systems? Do you have the most… Are you putting your dust collector in the most optimal location?
Donovan: Right.
Mark: For performance and safety?
Donovan: Yeah, and cost.
Mark: And cost.
Donovan: Yeah, because if you put something in the middle of a facility, that has a much higher cost than if you were able to locate that outside of the facility.
Mark: Yeah.
Donovan: Yeah. So, all right, let me ask you this. Say I have a brand new project and I don’t have any dust yet from my thing. Could you guys help me try to figure out how I can protect my collector properly?
Mark: Definitely, and it happens. I mean, we’re working on several right now.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And that’s great.
Mark: So, the more new DHAs we do for new projects, the happier we are.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: It means everyone’s staying ahead of it. But the short answer is yes. It depends on the process. You know, if it’s an R&D application or new product, a lot of times the materials that they’re going to be handling or the formulations, I’ve already been developed.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: At a lab scale.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: So, a lot of times we can work with our clients and they can create samples from a lab that are representative of what they’re going to be doing. Other times, you may not know exactly what the composition of your dust is or exactly the particle size, but you can bound your design. And so, for example, take something like wood.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: Common material.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: We don’t necessarily need to test that in all applications, especially if you’re picking out a new dust collector. If it’s sized for ST1 dusts, then you’re covered up to a KST of 200 PMX of say maybe 5 bar.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: You’re going to be well covered for pretty much any type of wood you’re using.
Donovan: Yeah. Unless you have something really crazy.
Mark: Oh yeah, or if it has additives in it or various things, you know, composites, for example.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: Maybe throw a wrench in that.
Donovan: Yep. Yeah.
Mark: But you can work through that and you can usually design with the safety factor to account for that.
Donovan: And probably come into an organization like you guys, who have so much under their belt already, you’re going to be, there’s a chance, a decent chance, you’ve already ran into a similar dust that you can at least compare it to.
Mark: That’s right. I would say another thing that we’re seeing more of, and it depends on the state and jurisdiction, but we’re seeing more input from fire code officials and building code officials, where they’re saying, I mean, for a long time, if you’re going to put in a sprinkler system or you’re going to design a building, you need fire protection drawings, you need stamped architectural set for permit. We’re more frequently seeing fire code officials saying, I need my dust collection drawings or my explosion protection drawings reviewed and stamped by a professional design, by a design professional.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And that’s something we’re all registered engineers, we’re registered in all 50 states.
Donovan: Nice.
Mark: And that’s something as well. If you’re doing a DHA as part of a new project, that gives you all the documentation you need.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: Not just for the building design, but for also the equipment that goes into it.
Donovan: So we’ve been talking a lot about new projects. But I gotta imagine that some of the biggest challenges is that dust collector that’s been out there for 30 years.
Mark: Yeah.
Donovan: It still may be running fine, but 30 years ago, it didn’t need to have the same protections, or maybe there wasn’t as much of an awareness of what needed. And now people are coming back, their insurance companies telling them stuff, and they got to start to unpack how they’re going to tackle that. Now, is that an area you guys can help with too?
Mark: It is, and we do a lot of that. I think existing facilities are spot on, present some of the most difficult challenges, because it could be a situation where someone is mandating that you do a DHA, like you said, and ensure that may not be something that you had planned for that year. And so, one of the roles that we help to serve is to help kind of evaluate those existing conditions. There’s things that can be done on pretty much any existing system to help mitigate risk, low hanging fruit, things you can do maybe for ignition source control, duct balancing, bonding and grounding, kind of managing things, or certain things you can do very low cost to start mitigating risk on day one.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: And a lot of times what we do with our clients is say, “Alright, let’s take a look at what you would need to do to bring this into compliance, or really manage the hazards that you have. Does it make sense to try to retrofit your existing equipment?” Sometimes you can. And we can work with them to size their exposure protection, install the right specifying and size their fire protection upgrades appropriately, and kind of help them understand what the costs and implications of that would be.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: A lot of times what you end up finding is it’s actually more cost effective to plan for and properly design and install a new dust collection system.
Donovan: Yeah, and I talk to a lot of people too, and that’s the same challenge they’re at. You know, they’re at this fork in the road, and they’re trying to do a budgetary analysis to see if they are…What they have is worthy and/or capable of being upgraded, and what the costs are associated with that. And it’s nice to know that there’s people out there that are third party. They have no skin in the game. They’re just trying to make sure people are getting home safe to their families.
Mark: Yeah, I mean for us, our goal is making sure that we’re protecting our clients and their people and their facilities and their business continuity. And we’re really in the business of providing the best objective advice that we can.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: But we also are advocates for our clients, right?
Donovan: Right.
Mark: And I think there’s a really good example. We worked on a project this past summer where they had a dust collector that was probably within five years of the end of its life anyway, had to be replaced, they had to be insured, that said, “Hey, you have to do this DHA.”
Donovan: Right.
Mark: And they had a lot of gaps in their fire and explosion protection. And we were able to help them come to a solution where we identified four or five things they could do at low cost to mitigate their risks substantially, modify their process and dust collection a little bit to maybe remove some of their higher risk items. So for example, they had some belt sanders that were used infrequently, but they produce a lot more sparks.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: And we say, “Hey, do you really need this here? Do you really need this now? No, we don’t. We can live without this short term.” And we kind of helped work with them and their insurer to say, “All right, here’s the plan for what we do this year.”
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And we think that this gets them to kind of as low as reasonably possible risk position for them to start planning for a new dust collector.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: And it turned out that that was everyone was in agreement, and it gave them five years to really budget for and plan for the new dust collection system that was not only safe and compliant, but got them where they needed to go.
Donovan: Yeah and in the meantime, as opposed to just putting it off, they’re doing everything they can in that situation to make it safe.
Mark: That’s right.
Donovan: As it can be.
Mark: Yep. Which is, that’s great.
Donovan: Yeah, that’s what everybody wants. Everybody just wants to have a safer work environment, try to help people.
Mark: Exactly.
Donovan: Yeah, have a really, not feel worried when you go to work. You want to be able to just go and do your job.
Mark: Exactly. And I mean, you know, we all understand, I don’t know that every, you know, on the codes and standards are developed.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: But those of us that are out there, either in industry or practicing, we understand that there’s real world constraints, there’s cost implications.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: But by and large, everyone wants to do the right thing.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And so I think, you know, finding pragmatic solutions, working with those in industry that have good solutions for retrofits and offer, you know, new and improved and current and compliant systems and kind of putting everybody together is something that we really enjoy doing.
Donovan: Yeah. And if you’re in that situation, I would say, you have the opportunity to come to a show like this. Boy, this is like just a goldmine of finding solutions and ways that you can do that. If you’re an engineering firm out there and you’re looking for some guidance, contacting guys like you could really help get this stuff into your customers’ budgets ahead of time on new projects, you know, get that design knowledge of people who’ve been in the field for a long time. A lot of people who are doing engineering work, structural engineers think that, you know, they’re not living it every day like you guys are. And they could probably miss something on accident. They don’t even mean to.
Mark: Yeah. And I mean, I think one thing for me that’s been really interesting is I’ve been doing it long enough now to kind of see how I’ve been on, I didn’t mention this, but I’ve been on the NFPA 652 committee for about 15 years, kind of initially when the DHA requirement came out.
Donovan: Yeah. And it has been a long time with the…
Mark: It has an hour in 660, NFPA 660, which is a whole other conversation.
Donovan: So it’s a beast, yeah.
Mark: But I think it’s a really good thing actually. But one thing I think is good is you can see how industry has responded. There’s a lot more options now than there were even when I started.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: And you can go get a brand new bus collector that has what you need on it. You can order it from the factory with all the protection it needs.
Donovan: Yes.
Mark: You don’t have to go try to figure things out on your own.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: There’s a lot of options out there to suit your applications. I think shows like this are really important to see that.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And kind of the cross-sharing of that knowledge.
Donovan: Right.
Mark: Just even in my still relatively limited career has something, something that I’ve seen come to fruition.
Donovan: So… Yeah. All right. So what’s the best way for people to get ahold of you if they want to reach out to you?
Mark: So you can go to our website fireriskalliance.com.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: There’s, we have a page dedicated to combustible dust there.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: That’s a good way to reach out to us. I’m also on LinkedIn.
Donovan: Okay.
Mark: I don’t know if we can share my contact information here if there’s a way to do that.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. So we’ll put it in the notes afterwards so everybody can see that and then…
Mark: Yeah.
Donovan: So but…
Mark: Shoot me an email, give me a call. I’ll be happy to chat.
Donovan: There you go. Is there, so is there any final pieces of advice you’d give anybody who’s out there and thinking they might need to get dust?
Mark: Yeah. I mean, I would say, you know, the kind of the sooner you start planning for it, the better. I think earlier involvement and earlier thinking about it is going to end up saving you both time and money in the long run.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: Doing that, you know, treating combustible dust hazard analysis, not as something you have to do once, but as something that is integrated into your engineering and safety side. Like so, a lot of our clients were working on not only integrating this into their EHS programs, but also into their engineering standards.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: And when you specify a dust collector, combustible dust is part of it.
Donovan: Yeah.
Mark: I’d say thinking of it as kind of integrating into your engineering and safety culture and your engineering and safety standards is, I think, a great way to make sure you’re safe and also make sure that you are kind of optimizing your spend to make sure you get this right from the get-go.
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do some work up front so that you’re saving money on the backside.
Mark: Absolutely.
Donovan: Yeah. Well, hey, Mark, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it.
Mark: Appreciate the opportunity and, you know, all the information and everything you’ve been able to give me.
Donovan: And yeah, so reach out to Mark at fireriskalliance.com.
Mark: That’s right.
Donovan: And you can help me out from there, whatever you guys need. Thanks for listening. You can check us out on social media. You can get Facebook, LinkedIn, all of those YouTube. Like us there. Yeah, we’re on all of them. And until next time, stay healthy. Stay safe.
Mark: Thanks for listening.
Donovan: Thanks.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe better. Work safer.
