When working at heights, you should take all possible precautions and maintain focus at all times to avoid any accident. If you have employees working at heights for you, you should still invest in their protection as stipulated in this working at heights training course. Below are some helpful safety tips for working at heights, which you should consider implementing.
Use Railing
Whenever it is possible, you should use a railing system. Doing so will offer passive protection, which will keep your employees safe and make you compliant. It is one of the best ideas because no extra equipment or training will be needed. There are numerous types of railing systems, designed to fit nearly all rooftop styles. Most of them are transferrable, which means that you can invest in the railing system only once for all your safety needs.
Use a Proper Personal Fall Arrest System
In case you decide to use a personal fall arrest system, you should ensure that you choose the proper equipment depending on the height and nature of the job. Do not go too cheap and sacrifice on quality either, as it will mean compromising on functionality. For example, if there is welding involved, you should choose a personal fall arrest system that is arc-safe. Higher quality, in most cases, also means increased comfort.
Inspect Your Personal Protection Equipment
Before making use of the protection equipment, you should do a thorough inspection of everything to ensure they will work as required. That is more of the case when using equipment that has been used several times before, as they can reach a point where they can fail. To carry out the inspection, you should have the knowledge to recognize potential faults in the system and the complete authority to address it.
Understand Fall Distance
It is essential to ensure that the protection equipment you use can engage before hitting the ground, or anything else for that matter. It does sound a bit of an obvious thing to do. Still, the number of severe injuries and fatalities that have been recorded before due to an error in calculating fall distance makes it essential to address it.
When working at 12 feet off the ground, for example, a six feet lanyard with a deceleration device may seem like a good idea, but it wouldn’t offer the desired protection. Remember that you should also factor in your body height when calculating fall distance. Any sag in the harness should also go into the calculations.