29.05.2009

Spreading the word

It is amazing how many photos we receive of not only dangerous work at height practices, but of jobs where an aerial lift would save time and money as well as be safer. Here is one taken somewhere in the UK yesterday morning.
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Hardly the most effieicnt or safest way to work at height

The builders are installing new guttering to the house, and using ladders and roofs as their form of access in direct contravention of the Work At Height Regulations. Not because they are a using a ladder, but because they need two hands to do the job and because it is not just a quick up and down but repetitive work.

Note the angle of the access ladder which is way to low and subject to slip or kick out. And then as one man stretches to reach the gutter bracket putting himself into a position where falling over backwards is a strong possibility, his colleague is obliged to provide some fall protection by holding onto the open window frame with he left hand, while he uses his right hand to steady his work mate.
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How's this for fall protection?

Hardly the safest form of working at height, bur also not the most efficient and we wonder how accurately that bracket will be placed. Builders such as these must be a major target for aerial lift suppliers, as well as the HSE, most of them have yet to move on from ladders, which for jobs such as this are really not the most efficient, never mind the safety or quality of work.

Interestingly this sector will generally no longer even think about picking up a spade to dig a hole, automatically renting in a mini excavator to do it. The same transformation needs to happen with their access equipment.

The key is the right product and ready availability, surely the best products for this sector is the small spider lift? It is very similar in terms of portability and ‘feel’ to the mini excavator, can be collected with a small trailer, will pass through doorways or garden gates and will reach up and over obstacles or single storey extensions.

Other possibles are of course trailer lifts, and 3.5 tonne self drive truck mounts. There is still a major job to be done and it also shows that there is still bucket loads of growth opportunity out there.