I’m looking for a good guide on construction safety (scaffolding, ladders, railings etc). Anyone have good articles or books etc you could guide me towards. I have to do a presentation on the subject. I’ve been to OHSA’s website already.
Thanks,
Martin
Heads I win, tails you lose.
Replies
Martin-
Try the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries website. More than you'll ever need or want to know(!). Actually, a lot of good stuff; some WAAAAY over the top, though. Not computer savy enough to post a link, so just do a Google search and you'll be there.
Ken Hill
Ken is this the site?
http://www.lni.wa.gov/
View ImageGo Jayhawks..............Next Year and daaa. Blues View Image
Hi, Neil-
Yeah, that's it. Our wonderful L&I is leading the nation in rules and regs. regarding jobsite safety, and has become a model for other states to follow. One of the current biggies is the development of regs. for ergonomics- repetitive motion, carpal tunnel, etc. etc. etc.. Before you know it, we won't be allowed to swing a hammer bigger than 15 ozs. , and then probably only if you wear a brace. That'd be good for Stiletto LOL. It reminds me of the classic deal where overprotective parents are so worried that the kid will be harmed they may as well encapsulate them in bubble wrap and never let them out of the house. But seriously, it used to be that our crews would be very careful to follow the letter of the law on commercial and high profile jobsites. L&I would show up unannounced or even park across the road watching for ladders not tied off or roof work being done without harnesses, etc. Now they've been sending out teams into residential neighborhoods as well to bust contractors.
Now, I am adamantly in favor of jobsite safety and even to the point of holding a weekly meeting concerning the subject. I've already lost an eye to lack of protection and everyone I work with regularly hears me talk about it. My problem with all of this, though, is the potential to get regulated so much that the costs and procedures of building or having something built will get increasingly out of reach and out of control. This business is inherently dangerous, and many dangers can indeed be minimized by being vigilantly safety conscious. But, the cold hard truth is that things happen, our knees wear out and backs get fu*ked up and that's the way it is. Anybody who doesn't believe this or is in denial about it should look for a different line of work.
Ken Hill
Edited 4/28/2003 2:12:06 AM ET by Ken Hill
Ken,
I book marked the site and was going to look at it when I had more time. This is a topic that probably doesn't get enough coverage.
Job site safety has often been over looked slightly at the places I have worked. Not to say that they were not safe but it was never given a lot of thought.
I hardly ever see guys wearing hard hats and I don't wear them myself. Might not be a big deal on a kitchen remodel etc. But on 2 story additions or anytime there is work going on over head they have a place.
Watching homes/apartments go up around me, I do not see many wearing safety glasses hardly ever.
roofing crews are never tied off, there also seems to be general lack of concern when people throw material off a roof.
I almost came to blows with one of our roofing subs when he screamed "headache" seconds before throwing a toe board off a roof that landed 2 feet from me, besides the fact the 2x4 almost hit me, it had nails sticking out of it
and he didn't understand why I was pissed off and screaming at him that if he ever did it again.....
Railings need to be in place and hardly ever are.
Maybe there should be a little more emphasis should be put on job site safety.
The work is dangerous, but there are ways to make it safer and in my personal experience I do not think it is given enough attention. Maybe I'll even bring it up tomorrow at the monday morning "get together"
Neil
View ImageGo Jayhawks..............Next Year and daaa. Blues View Image
Edited 4/28/2003 3:07:18 AM ET by CAG
Safety..there's no future without it!
Man I want to make it home every night in one piece.
I know what you mean about subs letting things fly off roofs or upper decks.
Common sense isn't very common.
Jobsite safety is one of those all too often overlooked parts of the world we work in.
Our corporation uses the 3 strikes system.
1st time you get a verbal warning.
2nd time you get a written warning.
3rd time you're off the site period.
On my site, you will wear
Hard hat at all times;
Approved 6" to 8 " safety boots at all times;
Proper clothing, minimum short sleeve shirts and long pants only;
Safety glasses at all time;
You will be attend a safety orientation meeting prior to setting foot on the site;
You will be trained in fall arrest and you will wear your harness when working anywhere near where you are at risk and you will be properly tied off;
You will check your attitude at the gate before entering my site.
You don't follow these rules and you hurt yourself, I will go to the hospital and kill you.
Well maybe not the last rule....I'll wait until they discharge you.
Never loss a man, never had one seriously hurt. Safety always pays.
Gabe
I was with you till you got to the long pants thing.
No way in heck are you going to get me or any carp I know to wear long pants in the summer.
I actually wear long pants in the summer, jeans to be specific.
Just don't like my legs *G*
Actually just got tired of scraped up knees and legs, its not really that bad.View ImageGo Jayhawks..............Next Year and daaa. Blues View Image
I wear long pants, long sleeves with the cuffs buttoned, and a rag on my head held on by a baseball cap. So far no skin cancer, but there's one little spot I'm going to have checked next time.
-- J.S.
My legs sweat to much in the summer .
if I wear long pants they just start to make it tough to raise my knees while I'm climbing around on the top plates.
Shorts go on in May and I don't take them off till mid Oct. ( I will wash them occasionally however)
Benny
I'm with you, cant ware pants in the summer, now that I live in Tx I wont put a pair on until Nov. or Dec.
Sorry Gabe, no offence to your rules nor any disrespect intended, the safety of your employees is paramount but I hate pants.
Doug
Amen brother!
The company I work for goes beyond OHSA in many instances. An audit of our accident rate several years ago was calculated in dollars and cents cost to the company. I don't remember the exact figures, but they were stagering. We are self insured on workmans comp. to something in excess of 5+ million a year, and we were paying additional premiums for our cost overruns. The lost time/productions figures were unreal also. The resulting Safety Program is now a model that many companies in our area emulated.
A first time safety violation can vary in discipline actions taken, depending on the sevarity of the offense. It can range from a verbal warning, written warnings, time off with pay, time off w/o pay, and time off pending discharge. Safety tailgates, job briefings, as well as certified saftey courses are all documented proof that no employee is left out of the saftey network. The company has gone so far as to empower each and every employee to stop the job for any unsafe condition. Not just our own work, but the work of any contractors that are working for the company.
Way over the top? You bet, but we have gone from one of the worst utility companies in the nation to one of the best for safety performance in the last seven years. Common sense is not applied, rules are applied. If you expect someone to use common sense on a construction site, you are just fooling yourself.
That is why I say Amen agian brother!
Dave
Dave,
Every once in a while someone posts a safety thread and we get the usual I don't wear hard hats because it messes up my hairdo, I won't wear long pants because it's too hot, blaw blaw blaw.
Cowboys belong in movies not real life.
We work hard to send all our workers home in the same condition that they came to work in. A professional construction site is a very safe place to work IF you work safely AND you follow some basic rules otherwise it is the most dangerous place on earth to work in. Whether we are 4 stories up or 100, safety is first, work is second. A 1/2" nut dropped from a 20 story building will kill you just a fast as a bullet from a 38, that's reality.
We pay dearly for Workman's Comp. and even with all the discounts for being one of the safest companies to work for, we still pay for those companies and individuals that are too stupid or full of themselves to follow simple basic rules. Whenever these cowboys get hurt we all pay.
It's the safety line or the unemployment line, it's their choice.
Work safe my brother and let's retire with all the parts to enjoy it.
Gabe
Gabe, just curious, why the long pants?
I'm shorts from whenever my knees won't knock until November & parts of Dec too usually. Levis the rest of the time.
Chicken Leggs Joe H
Hi Joe,
Several reasons really. The obvious is cuts and scraps on forms, concrete and rebar. The not so obvious is sunburn and protection from the heat.
The proper clothing will insulate and prevent heat dehydration.
Gabe
Road rash among a few others like sunburn, burns, cut and punctures. Since I work for a utility company we are exposed to a mirad of environments. Any particular day i could be repairing a fence at a substation in the morning, to working on an HVAC unit on the roof of a power plant that afternoon. At substations I could come in contact with poison ivy, barbed wire, and possible energy sources. If the substation is remote, knowone sees us, but if it is in your neighborhood, I guarentee you don't want your kids or wife to see my knobby old skinny fugly legs. In a power plant the hazards are to numerous to list. I also work in our office building, so shorts are out of the question even in those relatively safe environments. Heck, there are a lot of women in those offices that should not be exposed to my legs.
Can you imagine a lineman climbing a 40' pole wearing shorts and no shirts? I have seen guys come back from the ER after a slide down a pole with the proper clothing on. Without that thin layer of protection the 12 oz. denim provides they would be overnighters at the least. Still takes months for some of those deep splinters to work thier way to the surface.
Believe me I am just as miserable as the next guy wearing denim in the summer, It chaffs, I get galded, and it binds and restrict my movement as well, but it has saved my hide or reduced the severity of skin loss on many, many occassions.
If you work in a power plant for us, your plight is worse. Those people wear a blend of cotton and Nomex long sleave shirts and 14 oz. 10 oz. denim jeans. When working on anything over 240v ac or 30v dc they also have to wear Nomex flash jacket, low voltage gloves with lather protectors, safety glasses, and a hard hat with a full face shield. Try that when it is 90+ degrees on a BUR, or in the bowels of the plant where it is 120 degrees on a mild day. But guess what. We haven't lost a soul to an electrical accident or heat stroke in the last seven years.
The flip side of our stringent dress code for workers is that the company furnishes the clothing, and for the nomex blended stuff they also pay to have it laundered. The rest of us must launder our own free clothing, boo hoo :)
dave
Gabe
I don't think that I'm a cowboy because I like to wear shorts, and I damn sure know that I'm not stupid.
I think all things are relative, I'm a finish carpenter and very seldom come in contact with the things that you mention, I worked on a farm while growing up, I would never have thought about wearing a pair of shorts on the farm, never wore a shirt during the summer, course 30 years ago the threat of melanoma(sp?) although still there wasn't as widely known, now I would never think of it.
I do think that its the job that dictates what is suitable attire though, and the bigger the company the less likely there is going to be any leeway in dress code, or safety issues for that matter.
I think a lot of us people stretch the limits of safety at times, and I know that sometimes the weak just have to be weeded out but I do believe that most people do practice safety to some extent.
JMSO
Doug
You have to appreciate Doug that I can't begin to set different rules for different trades otherwise it would open a can of worms to arguments.
How come he wears shorts and I can't?
The cowboy remark refers guys who think that rules are only for others. What anyone does on their own site or situation is one thing but if it effects others, then that's another.
Stay safe,
Gabe
Gabe, Guess I wasn't thinking of what you do when I asked. I take an occasional whack on something, but I'm fairly careful too.
I've worked with people who bought their bandages in bulk, but I'm not one of them.
Doug's picture of sliding down a pole I don't like, with or without the pants.
Joe H
JoeH
"Doug's picture of sliding down a pole I don't like, with or without the pants."
I don't get it?
Is that some sort of conservative jab at a liberal? ;-)
Just curious
Doug
Doug, I was replying to Gabe's post, which doesn't allow me to see the rest of the posts in the thread. I was thinking of DaveRicheson's power pole sliders, but thought Doug, not Dave.
Sorry, and if you're a Liberal, I'm sorry about that too.
Joe H
JoeH
I just could'nt understand the meaning of sliding down the pole, thought there was some hidden meaning in it.
The liberal thing, just screwing around, I probably am a bit more liberal than conservative but not to the extent that I cant see right from wrong.
Doug
Joe and Gabe;
If you ever get a chance, go to a Linemans Rodeo. I am sure you have seen those lumberjack contest on television. At a Linemans rodeo the competition is similar but between electric utility companies from all areas of the country. These guys race up poles, build cross arm with standoffs, insulators, wire and such in record time. They have to do it all without violating any safety rules. They work as teams and individuals and also compete in rescue and first responder events. These guys fit the term "cowboys" pretty well, but they are safety first cowboys.
Dave
I guess the term "cowboy" can mean different things to different folks.
Safety is of concern to working cowhands as it is to construction workers. Rodeo competitors also have to concern themselves with the condition of their equipment and the inherent dangers associated with any dangerous sport.
My use of cowboy is more along the lines of the hollywood prima dona as someone who would risk his life and everyone around him as long as he looked good doing it.
Vanity and safety are not one and the same.
Wearing loose cotton long pants can be stylish, will protect you from the sun's harmful rays to some extent, does breath to allow sweat to evaporate, will help to protect you from heat stroke, make it harder for west nile disease carrying mosquitoes from infecting you, will protect you from all kinds of scratches that could easily infect you with lockjaw................I still think long pants have a place in the sun.
Gabe
Thanks all for your comments, I will incorporate many into my presentation.
Where can I get information on scaffold safety. At what height do you have to have a railing? Any height? etc.
Thanks,
MartinHeads I win, tails you lose.
I think the safety measures should be appropriate for the job site.I've worked on some nasty industrial jobs where every bit of safety equipment was necessary and still barely enough to stay safe.And then I've worked on other jobs where a safety control freak just enjoys lording over everyone to show how powerful they are.I had a safety compliance officer insist that an electrician putting lay in light fixtures in an eight foot ceiling,while standing on the third step of a six foot ladder,should have on a full body harness with a lanyard tied off to the T-bar grid,with hard hat,safety glasses,steel toed boots AND an orange vest.No exaggeration.What utter bull$hit.Control freaks like that are just a scab on the construction industry.
Martin-
Try the Biljax.com website. Also, rental yards are usually required to send out a complete packet of safety information when ever they rent scaffolding.
Ken Hill
If you have contact with customers like I do the long pants give off a more respectable look that is always appreciated.
OK I found the book I was looking for...
Jobsite Safety Handbook
written by the National Association of Home Builders and OSHA.
Very simple and easy to understand... check it out at Buildersbook.com or builderbooks.com
Peace,
MartinHeads I win, tails you lose.
actually the book martin refers to is available on-line, at:
http://www.osha.gov/doc/jobsite/index.html#Head%20Protection
Thankyou, Martin and Probozo!
Ken Hill
Gabe
I understand that you cant have different rules for everybody, that's why I said that the larger the group of workers the more strict the rules have to be.
I think that I practice safety first, although I think all of us do stretch things at times, I wasn't dissing you for the cowboy term, just maybe making light of it somewhat.
I understand that with groups of people you have to be on top of things more so than just by yourself, which is usually how I work.
Also wasn't trying to make sh!t out of someone that practices safe work conditions, just cant go without my shorts.
Doug
You might look at
http://www.versafety.com
I got my roofing harness and fall protection stuff from them. Their cheap saftey glasses are the best ones I've found. They're also good for general rigging odds and ends.
-- J.S.