1926.1153 — every cable penetration is a silica task.
A data center fit-out core-drills hundreds of slab penetrations for cable, cuts housekeeping pads and chases conduit. Concrete dust is respirable crystalline silica, and the disease it causes is irreversible.
Table 1 — follow the specified engineering controls, work practices and respiratory protection for your task, and you are deemed compliant without exposure monitoring. Or the alternative exposure control method — assess exposures and keep them below the PEL of 50 µg/m³ as an 8-hour TWA. Table 1 is dramatically easier and is what almost everyone should use.
§ The tasks on a data center build
| Task | Table 1 control (summary) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Handheld core drill / rig-mounted drill | Integrated water delivery, or dust collection with HEPA | The dominant task in a fit-out |
| Handheld power saw, concrete | Integrated water delivery; respirator by duration and location | >4 hr/shift indoors escalates protection |
| Walk-behind saw | Integrated water delivery system | Slab cuts for trench and conduit |
| Handheld grinder, mortar/concrete | Shroud plus HEPA dust collection | Pad finishing, penetration cleanup |
| Jackhammer / rotary hammer | Water or shroud with HEPA collection | Housekeeping pad demolition |
| Drywall finishing | Not a silica task | Different hazard — do not conflate |
Silica controls get applied to the visible demolition work and skipped for the electrician core-drilling four penetrations for a busway riser. Table 1 does not have a task-count threshold. If the tool is on the list, the control applies from the first hole.
§ What the standard requires beyond the controls
Written exposure control plan — the tasks, the engineering controls, the work practices, the respiratory protection, and the housekeeping.
Competent person to make frequent and regular inspections of job sites, materials and equipment, and to implement the plan.
Housekeeping — no dry sweeping or compressed air where it creates an exposure and an alternative is available. HEPA vacuum or wet methods.
Medical surveillance offered to employees required to wear a respirator for silica 30 or more days per year — initial, then every three years.
Training under HazCom covering silica specifically, plus the contents of this standard.
Wet methods and a live data hall are in tension. Water-fed core drilling above an energized PDU or an occupied hall below is not automatically acceptable — that is a phase boundary question. HEPA dust collection is usually the answer where water is not, and Table 1 permits it for most drilling tasks.
Housekeeping matters longer than the task does. Settled silica dust on cable tray and above the ceiling gets re-entrained months later when the next trade disturbs it.
A general contractor with a complete silica exposure control plan, and an electrical subcontractor core-drilling forty penetrations with a dry rig and a shop vac. The plan existed. It never reached the sub, and nobody checked the vacuum was HEPA.
The hazards do not arrive one at a time
A data center build puts silica, falls, energized equipment and heat on the same worker in the same shift. That is what we build onsite training around.
Onsite training OSHA 1926 overview