Insider Facts and Ideas on Heavy Construction Equipment

Falls from heights can lead to a lot of injuries on a construction site or at any other type of workplace that uses a lot of elevated work platforms. To help your crew stay safe, you may want to keep the following tips in mind.

Develop a Unique Safety List for Every Elevated Work Platform

The exact safety procedures you use for working at heights likely vary depending on the exact type of elevated work platform you use. To ensure everyone is on the same page, develop a different safety checklist for each type of elevated platform. With a checklist, your crew is less likely to forget certain safety steps.

Insist on Harnesses

Whether your workers are on scissor lifts, scaffolding or another type of elevated platform, insist that they wear a fall arrest harness. Each worker should have a harness that fits him or her properly. They should know how to anchor the harness to something stable, and they should always tighten and secure the harness before working at height. If someone does fall, a harness decreases the potential risk for injury from a fall.

Watch the Electrical Lines

If you are working near electrical lines, make sure that your work platform is far from the electrical lines. Also factor in any tools your workers are using. You don't want someone to accidentally hit or snag a power line with a metal tool and risk electrocution.

Always Get Off the Platform Before Moving It

Many elevated work platforms are designed so that you can raise and lower them with workers on them. For example, scissor lifts and boom lifts allow you to do that. However, when you are talking about moving the platform from side to side, you always need to have everyone disembark. This applies to all kinds of telescoping lifts as well as scaffolding.

Hire Workers With EWP Licenses

An elevated work platform or EWP license is something that a worker can get to ensure they know how to use an elevated work platforms safely. Ideally, you should not hire workers who don't have this type of training. At the very least, you should require all workers to go through this training after you hire them. If you have a crew of workers who perform tasks at heights, you may want to enrol all of them in EWP training, or you may want to see if a training professional can come to your work site and do a group training session.