Health & Safety

[catlad]

I have recently had a visit from the above and I have to say what a load of twaddle.
Check your ladders are safe before climbing them!
Wow I had never considered that!
Don't walk on skylights there not safe ect.

They now want me to send them a copy of my
employee's public liability insurance does anybody know if this
is this part of there remit?

 

[bishbosh]

It is THE Department of the Bleeding Obvious, most of it is common sense.
I have an office job, less than 10 of us in a the office, but still required to stick up H&S notices! Quite a safe environment I would have thought.

 

[Keithmac]

I know a bloke who works for some big firm and he had to go round all the toilet blocks and sinks fitting warning notices that hot water comes out of the hot tap.

You can't make it up..

 

[catlad]

Yes well the longer it went on I just thought
it's just a blame game.

 

[Doggit]

Hey, come on, they've got to do something to justify their existence. They do serve a good function, but I feel they'd started to believe their own hype, yet at the same time, are terrified that people will realise they are not that necessary.

 

[KenGMac]

It sounds about correct?

H& S everyone run for cover

Tick the box and I have done my duty, so when standing in a court I can say i told this Contractor not to stand on a glass roof light, there you go job done.
What the H&S do not account for is the glass roof light in a dark loft being covered with many, many years of dirt and dust, resulting in the glass having the appearance of a solid floor?
Then the fun begins, who should have cleaned the glass? where was the signed barricade around the glass roof light, the roof light by the way is not part of the contract it just happens to be there?

Lets not get started on the elephant in the room --- ? --- Artex--- Asbestos=== the dreaded ACM ? possibly the most commonly available source of an ACM?? [ But what about old sash and case windows? the ropes can contain an ACM???]

Just tick the box, state the GLARINGLY obvious and hope that something that our H&S person did not think about?? just read the pamphlet and regurgitate the message to the audience??

 

[mattylad]

They would have a field day at my works...

 

[Ian H]

Same here, we had a visit the other week and were missing a first aid kit and a few bits of crap off the laptop, one was the company environmental policy. Never even heard of it.

The woman had to watch me set up and start to dig my hole, I had barriers, anti vibration gloves, goggles, mask and ear defenders on and by the time I had cracked up a bit of tarmac I was ready to pass out. Couldn't breath.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Yep but if someone falls down the hole or you get a bit of mud spit in your eye and the fingers start getting pointed, maybe not by some of us with half a brain but there are plenty who will.

 

[Mw Roofline]

We do work for this management company and to change a tile on a porch roof a little higher than your bedroom ceiling they wanted me to submit a working at height application form that has to be signed off by their H&S guy as well as the RAMS we have to supply. We now hit them with £150+VAT now for all the messing around with paperwork before the fitters even set foot on site which ta,es 24 hours to be approved. A 2 min job off a pair of steps but they want a boss tower with cones around it and the residents need to be notified the day before as well as signs on all the doors. We charge £137+Vat for a tower. Then the labour. The broken tile costs 38p.

 

[John D v2.0]

All this heath and safety but construction still has a disproportionate amount of deaths.
Although most of the bureaucracy has been proven not to be health and safety but actually people going overkill. The HSE themselves point out that h&s is a proportional approach.

 

[Newboy]

Average deaths/year falling from height - 40
Average injuries/year falling from height - 43,000

Approx % as a result of falling through a fragile surface (fibre cement roofs/skylights) - 22%

 

[Brigadier]

It's all a mess, mainly because of chancers on one side, and idiots on both side.

I was working on a Carillion site a few years ago, and asked why hop-ups (which were perfect for our very-short duration, very frequent, but all over the site use) were banned.
"Because when we allowed them, the plasters would get two and a scaffold plank, and plaster off that".

 

[catlad]

Plasterer I know uses old milk crates.

 

[John D v2.0]

Plasterer I know uses old milk crates.

Great things! I noticed them using those drainage soakaway cubes on a building site bnea work