Safety protocol is essential on all construction sites and especially residential projects. You must implement basic safety measures for workers and homeowners who will regularly visit on-site.
Building an understanding of potential hazards and accidents will help you draft a plan to eliminate them. Below we go through five safety measures for home construction.
Essential Safety Measures While Building Your Dream Home
Ensure Your Crew are Fully Qualified
It may sound redundant, but ensuring the competency of your team is the first step towards a safe worksite. It involves validating the qualifications of your crew and those you contract to undertake specialised tasks.
Certified scaffolders are required if external work is required on a two-storey house with a total height above four metres. Attempting a multi-bay system yourself is dangerous to everyone in the vicinity.
Furthermore, relying on word of mouth as proof is unwise. Always verify and have proof in writing before trusting contractors to undertake work.
Employees need to be competent with the equipment they are using. If they are uncomfortable with drills or similar power tools, train or assign a competent person to complete the job.
Wear Appropriate PPE
Personal protective equipment (PPE) aims to eliminate or minimise exposure to environmental hazards. Wearing protective clothing can mitigate serious long-term damage should an accident occur. PPE includes:
Head
- Safety goggles to prevent eye exposure to harmful chemicals;
- Face shields protect the entire face against chemicals or debris;
- Hard hats protect the skull when loose objects fall from elevated platforms. The protective layer can turn a fatality into a headache.
Limbs
- Certain gloves are cut or chemical resistant;
- Steel-capped boots come to the rescue when heavy materials or objects are dropped on your feet.
Respiratory
- Respirators and masks assist in filtering air when near hazardous chemicals and toxins.
Body
- Appropriate clothing that protects the body is ideal over dress shorts or shirts;
- Hi-vis vests are necessary to increase the visibility of workers and visitors on-site. High visibility assists in preventing accidents on-site and the vest themselves are easy, cost-effective solutions.
Maintain a Clean Worksite
An especially important task for residential sites is to ensure a clean site for the duration of the build.
Leaving offcuts and equipment strewn across a house is not only harmful to workers but the future homeowner. Owners will have access to the site and likely visit on weekends to view progress and show friends and family. A disorganised workspace injuring your client is unacceptable.
A tidy worksite involves dedicated storage areas for tools and equipment left overnight. The built-up trash pile should be removed at the end of the week. How that is done is up to you. Skips are ideal but are not practical as a long-term solution. A trip to the garbage tip may be more economical.
Install Signage Around the Site
Adequate signage around a home construction site will notify personnel of hazards and mitigate liability if an accident occurs. Signage is equally useful for builders as it is the homeowners who will visit occasionally.
Signage on-site can include prohibiting entry unless authorised, no alcohol, mandatory signs for head and body protection, or even equipment signage.
An example of equipment signage is scaffolding tags.
Each tag indicates when a scaffold system had its last inspection and whether workers can work on it. Tags are necessary for Kwikstage and mobile scaffold towers.
Maintain Equipment Regularly
Ongoing checks of your tools and equipment improve the worksite’s safety and are beneficial to your wallet. Conducting maintenance now will often save costs compared to later when it breaks entirely or causes an accident.
Ensure elevated platforms are even, and check your power tools and the sharpness of blades and drills. Check for dents on aluminium ladders and rust on steel, and clean often after work is completed.
For scaffolding, check that bracing and standards are not bent and bowed. The risk of collapse is greater if load-bearing components are damaged. Plywood platforms on aluminium towers should be placed in a dry storage area as ongoing exposure to rain can result in delaminating.
Although safety measures are ingrained into tradespeople, a quick refresher helps offer perspective. Clients are not always aware of the dangers, and these safety measures protect them just as much as they protect your employees.
