Someone commented earlier that the chance of both cables breaking at the same time is essentially zero.  I agree.

However, there is (unfortunately) a reasonably good chance (in academic laboratories in particular) that when one cable fails and the hood sash becomes "sticky" or hard to move that the problem will simply be lived with rather than corrected, particularly when a hood is not used regularly or it is not "assigned" to one person in particular.  In those cases, the hood is being operated on one cable and the remaining one is stressed and likely to fail even faster.  Which could easily set up the catastrophic failure scenario.

In my academic career I encountered probably 2 hoods that did not have working cables, both in "overflow" or generally unoccupied labs.

A specific recommendation I'd make is adding "hood sashes operating properly" to your weekly/monthly lab safety checklist which should already cover other aspects of safe hood operation.

Rob Toreki

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