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[Marvo]

I don't have an issue with H&S legislation, merely with some peoples interpretation of it or their interpretation of what constitutes a risk.

If I recieve a safety prompt from anyone on site and it's come from a real risk possibility they've identified then I will happily revise my method of work or tools/PPE being utilised to mitigate that risk regardless of how inconvenient or costly it may be. If on the other hand I recieve a safety prompt around a risk that doesn't or could not in future exist then I will either ignore it or I'll comply to keep the peace after due consideration. The exception to this is where we tender on work and the cost to impliment the blanket H&S policies of that particular site, including those that address non existant risks has been built into the price of that job.

 

[Sharpend]

Handrails and kickboards are exceptable, it’s the rubbish about wearing a hard hat when the risk of something failing is negligible, or the necessity to wear gloves when 2nd fixing.
I’m also annoyed with the new buzzword silica, silica has been around as long as I can remember but now it’s as deadly as asbestos ? Really?? Is there such a thing as Silicosis? I haven’t heard any figures relating to numbers dead through silica?
Or does it just justify another H&S course?

 

[Marvo]

I'm not medically qualified but there is such a thing as Silicosis although I've no idea how prevalent it is....

 

[mort2376]

We have put a stop to Darwins natural selection process in this country. Most competent tradesmen have common sense and therefore follow H&S guidance.

It is unfortunately the ones that don't who cause problems for us all. Either by cowboy style work, or downright dangerous practices.

If we didn't wrap in cotton wool alot of these people when they were young, maybe natural selection would occur and they would get jobs sat behind desks making our lives harder on paper.

As a kid I found out electricity hurts when you poke ur finger in a bc lampholder and it's turned on. From that point I respected it !!!

 

[binky]

Handrails and kickboards are exceptable, it’s the rubbish about wearing a hard hat when the risk of something failing is negligible, or the necessity to wear gloves when 2nd fixing.
I’m also annoyed with the new buzzword silica, silica has been around as long as I can remember but now it’s as deadly as asbestos ? Really?? Is there such a thing as Silicosis? I haven’t heard any figures relating to numbers dead through silica?
Or does it just justify another H&S course?

Silicosis is what uesd to kill Cornish tin miners by the age of 30, in short breathing fine dust in too your lungs for long periods of time is not healthy, however it's nothing like as bad as asbestos. Worth being wary of though.

 

[binky]

Every occupation has it's knobs but "safety officers" do have to deal with some **** though. View attachment 15456

that's not the UK is it.

Most safety officers have a NEBOSH course and no real world experience. True story time. I used to rent an office on the ground floor or an industrial unit. Having formerly been a showcase for shopfitters, the office walls were glass with nice sayings etched into them. The rest of the open plan reception area was exactly that, open plan. My office door, also glass, was 10 ft from the main entrance, and 15 ft from the door into the warehouse, next to which was mounted the fire alarm panel. So you could sit in my little office space and see both fire escape routes with ease, and anyone visiting the office would have walked through one of them to get in. So, I have a NEBOSH trained assesor telling me we have insufficient signanage for the fire escapes routes, which did have signs on, but not sufficient apparently. Her reasoning was along the lines of 'how would anyone know there's a fire, and how would they get out if they didn't know the building' . Which is fine except I didn't have visitors from the general public in the office, we were most definetly in earshot of the fire panel and could see it, and you could literally see the escape doors or any possible fire. It is such lack of common sense that makes me describe most H&S officers as NEBOSH knobs, and I speak as a former trained H&S rep myself for a large 'Blue Chip' company. H&S is about minimising risk, not total elimination, it's about making you think if you can do a job safer with a few simple tweaks, not spending £ks to change a light bulb, and just occasionally stopping idiots from working in very dangerous ways.

Photo below will give you some idea of what I'm on about, front door porch frame is visible on the right of the picture, the whole front of the building was glass fronted, and we had a window more than big enough to climb out of if desperate.

 

[Sharpend]

Silicosis is what uesd to kill Cornish tin miners by the age of 30, in short breathing fine dust in too your lungs for long periods of time is not healthy, however it's nothing like as bad as asbestos. Worth being wary of though.

But that’s the exact common sense approach? I’m working around a lot of dust, I’m choking and coughing a lot, maybe it’d be sensible to wear a mask?

Do I really need a H&S rule/guidance for that?

 

[binky]

But that’s the exact common sense approach? I’m working around a lot of dust, I’m choking and coughing a lot, maybe it’d be sensible to wear a mask?

Do I really need a H&S rule/guidance for that?

can't have common sense! In this instance the role of H&S is to highlight the potential for long term harm from regular exposure to dust, which I would support as awareness encourages wearing of appropiate PPE at appropiate times. Trouble is, that gets translated into 'must wear a mask at all times' these days, and it is blanket application of such advice that is getting on peoples nerves. My fave example was hi-viz and hard hats whilst working on a roof - might scare the seagulls away I suppose , give some protection from crashing jumbo jets

 

[MikeJhn]

Oh come on have a bit of common sense, the reasoning behind wearing hard hats and high-viz on roofs is accessing and egressing them the equipment is then available through the site, the amount of times that silly example is used is beyond belief.

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

I would say that common sense is often forgotten. A person is going to change a failed ceiling lamp, they can't reach it, what do they do? grab the nearest thing and stand on it, be that a chair, table or what.
Or if a (small) ladder/steps is used and the lamp is touch too far, the person will lean over and...........
In both cases it is common sense not to stand on the nearest item or lean from a ladder/steps but yet people still do it. So although it's common sense not to do it, people still do.

 

[peterspurs]

Is this ok

 

[Sharpend]

I would say that common sense is often forgotten. A person is going to change a failed ceiling lamp, they can't reach it, what do they do? grab the nearest thing and stand on it, be that a chair, table or what.
Or if a (small) ladder/steps is used and the lamp is touch too far, the person will lean over and...........
In both cases it is common sense not to stand on the nearest item or lean from a ladder/steps but yet people still do it. So although it's common sense not to do it, people still do.

Quite correct, that is until they actually fall or break something then they will reconsider.
The human being is a species that learns by example, that being by the individual example.
Showing someone a video of someone else in an accident doesn’t necessarily sink in that ‘that could be me’ most will say ‘that won’t happen to me I’m not that stupid’ until it happens then they realise they are not are indestructible as they first thought.
H&S is not to designed to protect the individual but to protect the company from a claim, you only have to look when H&S became a serious issue?
Was it the ‘we can sue for that’ culture that we adopted from our cousins across the pond?

An accident is just that an Accident- I’m sure no one ever meant to fall of the steps or the scaffold or drop their hammer whilst up the ladder, some accidents are through the larking about that goes on on some sites, no H&S guidance is going to stop that!

 

[binky]

Oh come on have a bit of common sense, the reasoning behind wearing hard hats and high-viz on roofs is accessing and egressing them the equipment is then available through the site, the amount of times that silly example is used is beyond belief.

Not talking about building sites but domestic PV installation. I was MCS registered for many years, and the wearing of hiviz and hard hats was in the h&s documentation. Needless to say it was ignored as it was pointless. Biggest risk was always the customer walking around under the scaffold, we used to give the customer a ' tool box talk '.

Things I did encourage my staff to do was wearing gloves, saves an awful lot of scuffed knuckles when working with concrete tiles, and, obviously safe isolation of electricity. I did get rid of one young lad for being a risk to himself, he just didn't have enough common sense to avoid seriously hurting himself one day, and possibly another team member.

 

[MikeJhn]

A scaffolded out house for a PV installation is a building site and all H&S Regulations apply, can't have it any other way.

 

[binky]

A scaffolded out house for a PV installation is a building site and all H&S Regulations apply, can't have it any other way.

So explain to me how wearing hiviz and hard hats on the roof of a domestic property improves the safety of my staff and/ or customers?

 

[Sharpend]

It’s so they can be clearly seen when falling?? But then the scaffold should be built in such a way that prevents this risk?

 

[binky]

Is this ok

Crock of *****, but better than some of the things I've seen, like installing PV on a roof with no protection at all. Usually foreign teams of guys doing that.

 

[Andy™]

A scaffolded out house for a PV installation is a building site and all H&S Regulations apply, can't have it any other way.

if you're working on a house then chances are there isn't going to be many vehicles passing within the worksite (i.e the garden). if your vehicle is parked on th drive thn your not likely to get run over. if parked on a public highway then biggest risk is there. how many people passing also have a high vis? doubt there will be many. suppose bigest risk is out of control car that hits you/vehicle. either way, a high vis wouldnt make any difference so what's the point?

now on a building site there will be many differences, more vehicle traffic etc. possible plant / construction vehicles etc. more risk

tbh, its people like you who lack the ability to assess risks and instead have a blanket policy that are the problem. but that's the problem with stupid, you don't know you are

 

[binky]

H&S is not to designed to protect the individual but to protect the company from a claim, you only have to look when H&S became a serious issue?
Was it the ‘we can sue for that’ culture that we adopted from our cousins across the pond?

I would argue that it's gone beyond that now. Imagine being H&S bod on a large building site / factory / organisation of choice, employed full time by the company. Now, factories I worked in would have weekly (monthly minimum) management reviews of lots of things including H&S. Now initially, there's probably lots of actions to review and assess and improve, but a year or two later, there's little going on and H&S bod now has little to report. Fearing for their job, they now start looking for ever decreasing minutiae to report as problems, when in reality the management should be happy all is good and there's nothing to report - also fits with 'continuus improvement' quality philospophy and the need to constantly change things. So what starts as sensible, becomes increasing trivial / pointless / irritating, the food of job's worths and the over zealous. Now I'm not saying constant review isn't good, far from it, it's the looking like being busy that's the issue. This is of course very similar to our own industry, where it is increasingly feeling that 'the powers that be' constantly change things to justify their own existence....

 

[MikeJhn]

if you're working on a house then chances are there isn't going to be many vehicles passing within the worksite (i.e the garden). if your vehicle is parked on th drive thn your not likely to get run over. if parked on a public highway then biggest risk is there. how many people passing also have a high vis? doubt there will be many. suppose bigest risk is out of control car that hits you/vehicle. either way, a high vis wouldnt make any difference so what's the point?

now on a building site there will be many differences, more vehicle traffic etc. possible plant / construction vehicles etc. more risk

tbh, its people like you who lack the ability to assess risks and instead have a blanket policy that are the problem. but that's the problem with stupid, you don't know you are

What make you think that H&S is only about vehicles, your last sentence is very apt.