Siting of Instruments

In setting up a new laboratory, the laboratory manager is faced with the task of taking the laboratory space, with all of its faults and imperfections and fitting in the various items of furniture and equipment in such a way that the equipment performs as well as possible. 

For most chemists, the laboratory they work in will already be organized when they arrive. Everything will have been sited - hopefully in the correct place. This should not be taken for granted. Consistent poor performance of a particular piece of equipment should lead the analyst to question whether the environment might be the cause of the fault. The key message is to be aware which environmental factors will lead to poor performance in a particular method or in a piece of equipment. 

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This chapter covers briefly the environmental factors which contribute to the reliability of results, including laboratory design, siting of instruments and their maintenance. Mistakes often happen because simple actions are omitted, e.g. containers are not correctly or adequately labelled, incorrect containers are used or instructions are ambiguous. 

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