Fitting Fascias

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Might have some work labouring, fitting fascias, on the 2nd fix stage when I start; using nail guns.

Is health and safety for this eye protection and ear defenders if I'm going around with other blokes nailing in stuff?

Generally speaking is fitting fascias from start to finish easy?
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Yes to eye protection. Ear defenders not necessary for nail guns - they are not that loud, certainly not louder than any other general building site work and you won’t be able to communicate effectively with the other guys as you are moving round the building.
 
on the 2nd fix stage when I start; using nail guns.

Is health and safety for this eye protection and ear defenders if I'm going around with other blokes nailing in stuff?
Standard PPE for any site work as laid down by the HSE is:

Minimum SBP-rated boots (often higher on larger sites) - safety trainers are no longer acceptable on most sites and riggers are frowned on by the HSE
Hi-viz jacket or tabard or shirt (often ignored by small builders - but the HSE can fine both you and your employer for non-compliance)
Hard hat (needs to be in-date and to a British standard) and
Gloves (fingerless often permitted for joiners).

Trousers should be full length where there is any hazard that can cause risk of dermatitis, injury, or abrasion to bare skin or sunburn, e.g. working on scaffolding/towers or where shot blasting, welding, grinding, cutting, etc is taking place (again, small builders have a habit of ignoring this)

In addition for nail guns you do need to wear safety glasses or goggles and ear defenders or plugs (despite what one previous poster states this is HSE law and has been for decades). Whilst cordless 2nd fix nailers are relatively quiet, you might find yourself working alongside a guy using a 2nd fix gas nailer, or maybe a 1st fix gas nailer (doing framing) which are a lot noisier, or there may be other noise hazards adjacent to where you are working which you need to protect yourself from such as grinding, shot blasting, etc. A lot about legal duty there, but consider this deafness as a result of exposure to high levels of workplace noise is fairly common, and is TOTALLY irreversible. It is also progressive, so you don't even know you have a problem - until it is too late

You might also want to consider this - the HSE mandated the use of appropriate headwear for working at heights back in 2017 (again something that most small builders are clueless about or just plain ignore). Basically, it means if you work even one step up a ladder, or beside a small flight of steps (let alone on a scaffolding), you are required to wear a hard hat that has both extra padding inside it and a chinstrap. The idea is that if you have a fall the hat cannot be dislodged from your head and you are therefore far less likely to suffer major and/or permanent head injury (or to die for that matter) because your head has hit a hard object such as a pile of bricks or a concrete floor. Never mind what RoSPA, IOSH or the HSE say, from personal experience I can tell you that these do work. Either way NEVER work on scaffolding without at least a basic hard hat regardless of what others are doing

BTW the last (plastic) fascias I fitted went on with UPVC finish head nails

UPVC Finish Head Nail.png


and were hand nailed. If you are using a 2nd fix nailer better take a hammer, nail set and nippers

@johnny2007 - have any popcorn you could spare?
 
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Either way NEVER work on scaffolding without at least a basic hard hat regardless of what others are doing

I have to admit that I have never used a hard hat on scaffolding whilst painting the exterior of properties. That said, all of my work is domestic, I cannot work if anyone is above me because of dust/etc dropping down.
 
What is the average life expectancy for those that don't?
Shorter than it would be for those who do

OK, so I work on big sites, but the law is still the law, and not wearing a hard hat in construction is often just increasing the risks of a Darwin Award. I am also (sometimes) a Site First Aider, so on a number of occasions over the years I have had to send guys to hospital with gashed heads where they have bumped into ends of scaffolding tubes or ends of scaffolding clip bolts when they weren't wearing a hard hat (because peolpe take them off). Nothing fatal, so far, generally don't require stitches, but scalp wounds tend to be messy because they generate a  lot of blood and inevitably the "victim" (pronounced "idiot") doesn't have an up to date tetanus jab - so it's "drop yer kecks and point yer derriere skywards" in A & E, after they've been stitched

The main reason I wear a hard hat on site is to protect myself from the stupidity and carelessness of others. I recall one place where the firm (a well-known North West construction group) employed their own scaffolder and his mate to go round all their sites checking and altering scaffolding (for big scaffolding erections or drops they brought in agency staff to assist). They were on a 4- or 5-storey strip and refit job in Manchester where the labourers were stripping materials off the roof including a blockwork parapet. The site manager had set up several skips around the building, but only had three chutes, so the labourer's ganger had been instructed that as skips were filled he was to dismantle, move and reassemble the chutes over the next skip, then move the barriers to form a restricted access area around that active skip. Well, he was either too lazy, unable to understand the instructions given (English wasn't these guys' first language) or maybe he was on a promise that night and wanted to get the job done quick and get himself home - either way, they get to skip no. 4 and there's no chute, so they just start hoying all the waste materials over the side of the scaffolding into the skip below. Enter our scaffolder, who walked out from the scaffolding at ground level and was promptly hit by a concrete block which had struck a projecting scaffolding tube on the way down, changing it's direction and landing on the scaffie's hard hat. The blow split his hard hat and fractured his skull, but with skilled surgery he survived, although he had a splitting headache for several months afterwards and ended up with the scar to end all scars from above one eye socket and right over the top of his head. We saw this when he came to our site - and it was a sight! So despite his injury he survived - without a hard hat he most likely wouldn't have. It's not always your own stupidity you have to protect against...

...which is why you wear a hard hat on site
 
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