A SHORT GUIDE TO CONSTRUCTION SAFETY

Minimum Requirements for Safety

q             Personnel are to be aware of what is required of them

q             Areas of responsibility are defined and lines of communication are clear

q             People take that responsibility seriously and take the appropriate action when they see or foresee a problem

q             Be familiar with codes of practices and be able to implement them

q             Review internal procedures (i.e. check lists) and use them

q             Don’t allow the use of scaffold or scaffolding practices on site that you would not be happy using yourself

q             Think Safety and Work Safely

THINK SAFETY

To achieve “zero accident” site, the following precautions and protective equipment are necessary:

Personal Protective and Life Saving Equipment

Personal protective equipment (PPE) includes articles such as eye, face, head and extremity protection; protective clothing; respiratory devices; protective shields; and barriers for mechanical, chemical, or other workplace environmental hazards. 

Head protection: Protective helmets (hard hats) must be worn by employees who work in areas where there is a possibility of head injury from impact, falling or flying objects, or electricity.

Hearing protection: Hearing protection must be worn when noise levels cannot be reduced by engineering or other means.

Eye and face protection: Eye and face protection must be used to protect against physical, or chemical agents. Protection must be reasonably comfortable, fit snugly, and not unduly interfere with employee movement. Employees whose vision requires the use of spectacles, shall be protected by goggles

Use eye goggles/ protective cover on face while hacking, welding, glass cutting, chipping or drilling operations

Respiratory protection: Construction sites must have a written plan for procedures to select and use respirators. Respirators must be regularly cleaned and disinfected, stored properly, and inspected. Users must be properly trained in selection, use, and maintenance of respirators. 

Safety belts and lifelines: If safety belts, lifelines, and lanyards have been used for in-service loading, they must immediately be removed for service in employee safeguarding. Ensure that these personnel at all times are secured to the building.

Safety nets: Safety nets must be provided if workplaces are higher than 25 feet above the surface and ladders, scaffolds or other safety equipment is impractical. 

Workers over or near water: Life jackets or buoyant work vests must be provided to employees where the danger of drowning exists. These must be inspected for defects before and after each use. 

Ø            Workers below 18 years of age should not be allowed to work at site

Ø            When workers on the construction site are exposed to vertical drops of 6 feet or more, provide fall protection in one of three ways before work begins: 

v            Placing guardrails around the hazard area. 

v            Deploying safety nets

v            Providing personal fall arrest systems for each employee. The belts should be always tied above the person. 

Ø            Openings in the slab should be barricaded/closed at all levels. For high rise building use safety nets at appropriate locations. Clear the debris fallen on the net once in 2 days. Also, tighten the net, once in a fortnight.

Ø            Do not allow work in vertical alignment at edges, stairwell, lift well or other openings in the slab without close supervision

Ø            Secure working platform planks with ropes to the scaffolding. The thickness of the working platform if in wood, should not be less than 2”. Check the planks for splits.

Ø            Place scaffolding on firm even ground and check periodically (twice a week). Get the scaffolding checked for potentially weaker zones and horizontal bracing. Supports through toilet ventilators get inadvertently removed while tiling and do not get replaced.

Ø            Dowel rods should not be left naked at the body level. It is good practice to cover them with thick hessain cloth and POP.

Ø            TRENCHES

Trenches 5 feet deep or greater require a protective system. Trenches 20 feet deep or greater require that a registered professional engineer design the protective system.

Protective Systems for Trenches

v            Sloping protects workers by cutting back the trench wall at an angle inclined away from the excavation.

v            Shoring protects workers by installing wooden, aluminum, hydraulic or other types of supports to prevent soil movement.

v            Shielding protects workers by using trench boxes or other types of supports to prevent soil cave-ins.

Safety Instructions

v            Inspect trenches at the start of each shift, following a rainstorm or after any other hazardous event.

v            Test for low oxygen, hazardous fumes and toxic gases before entering a trench.

v            Keep heavy equipment and excavation spoils at least two feet away from the trench edge.

v            Provide stairways, ladders, ramps or other safe means of access in all trenches 4 feet or deeper.

Ø            Use strong and well-secured ladders for access. Maintain ladders free of oil, grease and other slipping hazards. Tie the top end of the ladder securely.

Ø            Use industrial safety pin & plugs. Use insulated & safely secured electrical conduits for transmission

Ø            Periodically test the lifting machinery such as cranes and hoists, and lifting gear such as ropes and shackles.

Ø            Inspection and rectification of access facilities such as scaffolds and ladders

Ø            Provide adequate artificial lighting wherever natural light is inadequate

Ø            Provide appropriate fire fighting equipment at potentially hazardous locations. Check fire-fighting equipment for date of expiry and ensure that all are conversant to use them.

Ø            Remove wooden shavings from carpentry yard every day.

Ø            Use face mask, hand gloves & eye protection while handling chemicals

Ø            Take measures to control the menace of mosquito, flies, rodents, snakes, termites, bees etc. 

Ø            Keep first aid kit and snake bite kit in the site for emergencies and train as many people as possible to use them.

Ø            Avoid lady workers working in potentially dangerous locations like sloping roofs.

Ø            Safety training and education

v            Conduct mock emergency drill once in a month to streamline the systems of fire fighting, attending a minor injury, or taking a person with serious injury to the nearest hospital. 

v            Educate workers on safe work practices on a regular basis. Emergency escape procedures, evaluation plans and emergency escape route shall be well-defined

v            Keep a uniform pace of work and train workers to be always on alert

v            Names of persons or departments who can be contacted in case of emergencies should be displayed.

Ø            Use adequate safety signs around the site to warn workers of potential danger

Ø            Water sources like sumps to be covered or barricaded.

Ø            Good housekeeping of materials through proper method of stacking avoids accidents.

HOUSEKEEPING

Ø            Provide dustbin in common areas.

Ø            Clean debris accumulated regularly. Keep the site clean at all times.

Ø            Provide dust bins of capacity 150 litres per 5000sft of built up area

Ø            Collect debris at a common point (debris yard) that is easily accessible to a tractor cum trailer. Shift the debris on a daily basis

Ø            Stack materials required at site neatly, and away from heavy traffic areas

Ø            Dedicate a team for house keeping and supervise their works on a daily basis. After structure is completed, allocate one person per 20,000 Sft of floor area for house keeping. During the construction of structure allocate one person per 30,000 Sft of floor area for the same purpose.

Ø            Preliminary cleaning is to be done by the concerned contractor/tradesman. The housekeeping squad should do the general cleaning and carting of debris.

Ø            Stack granite slabs properly on level ground using MS stands to maintain balance on both sides.

Ø            Provide temporary doors with locks at entrances of apartments to reduce the area of liability for cleaning

Ø            In apartments, the sand shifted for masonry/ Plastering or filling should be stacked in a remote corner of the room with blocks circumventing the edges. The spreading of sand due to human movement is avoided.

Ø            Smoking, chewing tobacco is strictly prohibited at site.

Ø            Impose heavy penalty as a deterrent if the person is found littering, doing nuisance at site or not observing safety regulations.

INSPECTION METHODOLOGY FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE

ENSURE

A.            Personnel

a)            Wearing of safety helmets absolutely mandatory. Ensure entire construction site is hard-hatted

b)            Safety/ warning boards at vantage points to ensure the above

c)            Wearing of safety belts is compulsory.

d)            Wearing of safety goggles and ear plugs for people working on shearing/ grinding machines

e)            Wearing of gloves for all dangerous activities

f)             Wearing of gum boots during concreting

g)            Provision of stretcher and first aid kit on each site (for emergencies)Barricading

a)            Trenches are barricaded at 1m from the edge and to a height of 1m

b)            All staircases must be barricaded

c)            All lift shafts must be barricaded immediately after deshuttering

d)            Solid barricading in necessary areas with tape barricading done in additional areas

Lighting

a)            Entire site should be floodlit with halogen lamps

b)            Lighting on top priority on all staircase areas

c)            Lighting of all cellars

d)            Lighting in all material storage areas except where diesel and petrol is stored

Fire extinguishers

a)            Fire extinguishers provided in

v            Site office

v            Diesel & Petrol (POL) storage areas

v            Store for Wooden items/ Carpentry yard

v            Paint storage areas

b)            Instruction manual of fire extinguishers on-site

c)            Training of Project manager and at least 5 site supervisory personnel by suppliers

d)            Expiry date of fire extinguishers and regular inspection to form a part of the Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) 

Cleanliness on site

a)            Access roads to site and office always to be maintained free

b)            Stack all materials to a height of 1.5m only

c)            Stack cement bags up to 10 bags high only

d)            Stack all H-frames cleanly

e)            Clear all debris and debris yard at regular intervals

f)             Introduction of visible safety/ warning boards on site, such as below:

Check points with the Project Manager  

a)            Personnel working on grinding machines should use proper safety gear. 

b)            Operations of electric saw cum planing machines should be protected sufficiently. Most electric saws’ are delivered along with the planing devices. It is noticed that when the saw is in action, the planing devices are open and vice versa. This poses extreme danger to all operations. Therefore, the following guidelines should be adhered to:

v            Proper wooden/ metal cover to the saw blade at all times

v            Proper cover to planing device

v            When not in use, the cutting devices should be covered after duly cleaning them 

c)            Provision of one fire extinguisher is essential