Boost the Safety of Your Scaffolding With These Seven Items
If you have a team of people working on scaffolding, safety needs to be your number one priority. In addition to safety training, there are a number of sometimes surprising things that can make your workers as safe as possible on your scaffolding. Think about these seven essentials:
1. Martial arts training
While your employees aren't likely to need to defend themselves on your scaffolding, they may fall, and many martial arts train them for that. Falling properly involves turning your body in ways that protect its most vital parts, and it also involves rolling into the fall to prevent injury from impact.
2. Safety harnesses
Even more important than martial arts training, however, is safety harnesses. Also called personal arrest systems, these ropes and pulleys can be attached to both workers and equipment. That way if something heavy falls off the scaffolding, the arrest system stops it from falling too far and hitting anyone.
3. Drink lids
When preventing falls, it's important to keep areas clean and dry. Drink lids can help with this. Don't let your employees bring open thermoses or uncovered coffee cups up on the scaffolding. Instead, everything should have a lid with a small opening or a straw.
4. Non-slip traction strips
To further reduce the risk of falling, consider lining the platforms of your scaffolding with non-slip traction strips. Ideally, all of your employees should be wearing sturdy work shoes with non-slip treads, but this addition makes everything even safer.
5. A scale
Every bit of scaffolding has a load capacity. If you pass this capacity, your scaffold could collapse. If you think you are getting close to maximum capacity, use a simple scale to weigh your workers and their equipment before they go up on the scaffolding.
6. Level
When you are putting up your scaffolding, keep in mind it needs to be level. An unlevel work surface increases the risks of slips and falls due to imbalances, and it also threatens the integrity of the scaffold as a whole.
Use a level as you raise your scaffold, and check it at the beginning of each work day to ensure it is still level.
7. Weather app
Finally, you need to make sure the weather is cooperating. Avoid working on scaffolding in high winds, especially if it is swing stage scaffolding that is suspended from the roof rather than scaffolding that starts at the ground.
For more information about safe use of the scaffolding, you may want to talk to your supplier.
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