To avoid serious or even fatal accidents, remember that any work undertaken on a roof needs to be carefully planned and then only undertaken by trained, competent workers.
5 Tips to Help Ensure Workers Are Kept Safe When Working on Roofs:
- Do a risk assessment to identify the hazards inherent in the work. This might include falling through holes or fragile parts of the roof, or falling from the edges. Always aim to prevent a fall off the edge by using guardrails and toe boards, and label any fragile roof areas and prevent people from walking on them.
- Work out how to minimise the distance and consequence if a fall was to occur, by considering both individual and collective controls to determine which one might be most appropriate or if a combination of both would be better. Individual measures relate to how one person might be protected, such as by using a suitable harness, and collective protection could include the use of guard rails or nets.
- Inform all workers of the plan for undertaking the work safely, and the way in which the job is to be carried out. Include information such as the correct access and egress points, the location of any fragile areas such as roof lights, and the equipment – for example a harness – that is to be used. Make sure this information is also given to subcontractors.
- Ensure that workers are competent to do the job, and have received appropriate work at height training.
- Determine how workers will access roofs safely by providing items such as access hatches, fixed scaffold towers and mobile access equipment for them to use.
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