Working at greater heights can be quite risky. One wrong step can result in a very serious injury or something even worse. So it is very important to adapt to the height safety solutions. Hence today, we will discuss various height safety solutions and how to use them to your advantage.
Height Safety Solutions Which Can Be Easily Implemented
Working at greater heights can mean many things; you could be on a ladder outside your home or office, , edge of the roof or working on a roof. According to OSHA, anything above 4 feet is considered working at a height in the industry. Now to maintain the safety and security while working at a height, you need height safety solutions, so let us take a look at them:
- Railings: Railings are a form of passive protection, which is the easiest height safety solution you can have. Railings can be installed on any roof or any part of the house with an edge. The workers do not even need to go under any specific training to learn how to work with railings as protection. All they need to do is stay on the other side and work.
- Selecting the proper PPE: If you are planning on getting a PFAS or a personal fall aresst system for yourself and your workers for, height safety solutions, you must choose the correct equipment. If you research the market, you will notice that there are multiple options. More or less, full-body harnesses which are available in the market will function equally. The only difference is that it might come with some additional features if you buy a more expensive one. Additional features are nothing but fireproof material, extra D rings, or something like a safe arc design. Sometimes you will notice that a harness will cost more because it's just more comfortable. But you need to keep one thing in mind, comfort is also important, but nothing comes close to safety. So you need to do your research properly and make sure that whatever you buy safety should be the top priority and should be top-notch.
- Inspection of your PPE: Once you get the equipment you desire, next is inspection. The difference between life and death can boil down to something as simple as checking whether your height safety solution will work or not! Before you or any of your workers use it, it should be checked whether it will keep the person safe or not. With regular usage the chances are that it may wear off soon so a pre-check is very important.
- Fall Distance: This is something very important when it comes to safety. You might have all the protection in the world, but you still can't be safe if you do not correctly measure the fall Distance. For example, you are using a 6' lanyard, and you are on top of a building that is 12' in height. This measurement will not work. People think this is common sense, and if your lanyard is longer than the height, you should be fine, but that is not the case at all. Because the lanyard will get deployed at 3.5' and then you will have a 8-9' gap left, and unless you are tall, things can get quite ugly. So while taking the measurements, all these must be accounted for: height of the person, sag in the harness, body length below D-ring.
Conclusion
These are the basics of height safety solutions, and if you can get all of these rights, you do not ever need to worry about fall injuries. Make sure you inspect everything before the work starts. It's better to be safe than sorry.