$24.95
• ~30 minutes • English & Spanish • Instant printable certificate
Complete the online course at your own pace, pass the quiz, and download your Certificate of Completion immediately.
STEP 1
STEP 2
STEP 3
Respirable silica particles are so small they pass the lungs' defenses and scar the air sacs where oxygen enters the blood. The result is silicosis — incurable and progressive — plus elevated risk of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, kidney disease, and autoimmune disorders including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The particles that do this damage are invisible: a full day's legal maximum exposure could not be seen with the naked eye.
OSHA's silica standards — 29 CFR 1926.1153 for construction and 29 CFR 1910.1053 for general industry — set a permissible exposure limit of 50 µg/m³ (8-hour TWA) and an action level of 25 µg/m³. For construction, OSHA's Table 1 lists 18 common tasks — masonry saws, jackhammers, grinders, drills, milling machines, crushing machines, heavy equipment — and specifies the exact engineering controls and respiratory protection for each. Follow Table 1 fully and no exposure monitoring is required; skip it and the burden of proof lands on you.
Employers must also maintain a written exposure control plan, designate a competent person, restrict high-exposure areas, ban dry sweeping and compressed air cleanup where feasible, and offer medical surveillance to workers who wear a respirator 30 or more days per year. This training gives your workers the working knowledge of all of it — the tasks that create silica dust, the controls that capture it, and the habits that keep it out of their lungs.
Table 1 is the practical heart of the silica standard: do the listed controls for your task and exposure monitoring isn't required. Sample rows as taught in the course:
| Table 1 Task | Required Engineering Control | Respirator |
|---|---|---|
| Stationary masonry saws | Integrated water delivery | None |
| Handheld power saws — outdoors | Water feed | N95 if used over 4 hrs/shift |
| Handheld power saws — indoors | Water feed | N95 always |
| Jackhammers — outdoors | Water feed or shroud + dust collector | N95 if over 4 hrs |
| Jackhammers — indoors | Water feed | N95 always |
| Handheld grinders — tuckpointing | Shroud + dust collector | N95 under 4 hrs, PAPR over 4 hrs |
| Walk-behind milling / floor grinders | Continuous water spray or dust collector | None |
| Crushing machines | Water/mist + ventilated booth or remote station | None |
| Heavy equipment — demolition, grading | Enclosed cab, or water/dust suppressants | None |
How small is the PEL? 50 µg is about 220× smaller than a grain of sand. A cubic meter is a box roughly 3 ft 3 in on each side; a worker breathes about 16.8 of those boxes in an 8-hour shift — and even maximum legal exposure is invisible to the naked eye. That is why controls, not eyesight, are the defense.
This crystalline silica training covers the hazard, the standard, and the task-level controls:
These visuals come directly from the Excavator Training course your team will take — practical, field-tested material, not stock theory.
The silica standard is one of OSHA's newest major health standards, and it is explicit: employees exposed at or above the action level must be trained on the health hazards, the tasks that produce exposure, the controls in use, the written exposure control plan, and the medical surveillance program.
This course covers every one of those elements. Pass the quiz and print your Certificate of Completion immediately — documentation for your employer's silica program file.
