Hazard Assessment

Every time you or your team access a rooftop you should take precautions and avoid hazards and dangerous situations. We all need a reminder about what specifically to look out for, so we've compiled this list of the top 10 hazards you should be aware of before you access a rooftop.

One of the most neglected aspects of Fall Protection is the rescue and retrieval plan.  Sure, you've selected your harnesses and lanyards, debated the feasibility of railings, and calculated your fall distance, but what do you intend to do once the worker has fallen?  While the worker is...

Swing falls are not as fun as they might sound at first. In fact, in all seriousness, swing falls can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately, many people, when working at heights, fail to take swing into consideration. So, just what is swing?

Swing is what occurs when...

When a company doesn’t plan ahead or take the time to do a job hazard analysis, unsafe work conditions can sneak up on them. This lack of diligence means that employers often reach for the “quick and easy” solution. That solution is usually Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)....

It is common to see paths present on flat rooftops. They are visible by laying down pavers, rubber mats, or something similar, and they meander around the entirety of the roof. Once you have accessed the roof, ideally this path or walkway will lead you to the necessary areas.

Can you...

If somebody was walking on a construction site and saw a large hole in the roof with nothing around it, they would immediately recognize this as unsafe. It is an opening that leads you to a 30’ drop onto a hard surface.

Skylights are less obvious. Where the drop still exists, there...

Regardless of how much effort OSHA, the EHS industry and employers put into fall prevention, falls continue to occur. In a perfect world, all efforts to prevent falls would be 100% successful, but it’s not a perfect world. Failure to take measures to reduce the impact of an...

Roof washing is probably never on anybody’s top-5 list of ways to spend an afternoon, but it certainly can become a necessary evil.  If it were just a matter of aesthetics, you could almost write it off as vanity and leave your roof to become whatever filthy mess it was destined to...

I’ve been in many warehouses.  Many, many warehouses.  The difference in safety culture from one to the next is as varied as the products they store.  Some are in pristine, new buildings with clear lines painted on the floor, have only safe, certified forklift operators driving the...

Changes in the legislation in states like California have made dependence upon solar energy, not only more appealing, but a requirement.  California is specifically pushing hard for rooftop solar installations.  Rooftop solar installations mean exposure to fall hazards.  Fall hazards increase...

OSHA estimates that 32 million employees are exposed to hazardous chemicals each year in the United States.  Understanding OSHA's Hazard Communication (HazCom) program can be quite confusing at times.  OSHA 29 CRF Part 1910 Subpart Z states that the purpose of the program is to ensure that the...

We’ve all heard the news stories about tragic rooftop falls leaving an employee with a tragic injury or worse. Your first thoughts are of the employee and their family. Then the question of whether it was preventable begins to loom. Then you ask, are you making sure your greatest asset –...

One of forgotten elements of fall protection is the post fall rescue. It's not enough to stop a fall, you need to know how to rescue the victim. Hightek, a fall protection and scaffolding training and consulting company in Canada, has released a short video to cover the basics of a post fall...

Finding a solution to use is just the first step in implementing a safe working environment. Making sure that it is installed correctly is just as vital. You have a few options to make sure that this is done correctly.

OSHA regulations speak in absolutes: there is a hazard or there isn’t a hazard.  In reality, though, there are varying degrees of hazards because there are varying degrees of severity and varying degrees of likelihood that an incident will occur.  You will see this reflected by OSHA in...

Every work environment, every task, every piece of equipment, and every single worker are different. 

It would be foolish to think that a company could plan for safety with a one-size-fits-all process.  Yet, many companies still attempt to do just that – provide a one-size-fits-all...