Falling Down
A complex web of challenges awaits
precasters seeking fall protection.
By William Atkinson
William Atkinson is
a freelance writer based in Carterville, Ill.
In many industries, fall protection
is not even a concern because employees do not
work at heights. In most industries where fall
protection is a requirement, there is an abundance
of equipment that can easily meet the requirements.
Unfortunately, the precast concrete industry
is not so lucky in this respect. Finding the
right equipment to meet fall protection needs
can be an incredibly challenging and complex
process.
Take the experience of Carolina
Precast in Dunn, N.C. The company has a strong
commitment to safety and an excellent safety
record. Those aren’t just empty words.
The plant received an award last year from the
National Precast Concrete Association for having
the most improved safety performance for its
size. The commitment is ongoing, and management
is doing everything it can to improve safety
even more.
However, one issue still presents
a challenge for Carolina Precast, and it is
unsure how to address it. “We’re
at a loss on what to do about fall protection,”
says Terry Darling, quality and safety manager.
She explains that even OSHA inspectors have
no solutions.
If you’re not using
self-consolidating concrete (also known as self-compacting
concrete, or SCC), employees have to work on
top of the large forms to vibrate and finish
the concrete, says Darling. “The problem
is that we have overhead cranes, so you can’t
tie off overhead, which is the traditional method
for fall protection. We don’t feel ladders
are safe, either. You would have someone standing
on a ladder trying to hold a 40-pound vibrator
and maneuver around.” Another idea is
to tie employees off to the side of the form,
but this wouldn’t work either, because
the facility often has forms side by side. As
such, even though an employee wouldn’t
hit the ground, he or she could hit another
form.
Virtually everyone affiliated
with the industry admits there are challenges
related to fall protection. “While the
precast industry has unique requirements of
its own, even more challenging is the fact that
each precast facility can have its own unique
requirements,” points out Bruce Duden,
business development manager with Evan Corp.
in Farmington, Minn., a distributor specializing
in fall protection equipment.
“When it comes to fall
protection, things were easy up through 1985,
when there were few dimensions and specifications,”
says Paul Kincheloe, director of safety for
Americast in Ashland, Va. “Today, specifiers
and engineers design a lot of different things
that precasters try to satisfy. Since we are
competing with the ‘pour it in place’
guys, we are creating all of these different
forms.” This puts a burden on the manufacturing
side to provide proper fall protection, according
to Kincheloe.
“When you talk with
people at most safety conventions, one of the
first things they want you to do is have people
tie off overhead,” says Mike Fiedler,
vice president for safety and environmental
compliance for Oldcastle Precast in Auburn,
Wash. “That sounds terrific until you
think about that bridge crane overhead.”
What about a fall restraint
system? This involves equipment that prevents
falls. They are usually set so that employees
can walk to the edge of a raised surface, but
no farther, so they don’t risk falling
off. “The benefit of these is that they
actually prevent falls from even occurring,”
says Kevin Denis, program manager for Gravitec
Systems in Bainbridge Island, Wash., which manufactures
fall protection equipment. “The challenge
in precast, though, is that, if you have a 6-foot
worker standing on top of a 4-foot-square form,
there is no way to physically tie off in that
short a distance to the edge.” (Such a
system can work on larger forms, though, such
as bridge forms that are 25 feet long and 10
feet wide.)
Another idea is a fall arrest
system. This equipment allows the worker to
fall, but it arrests the fall before the person
hits the ground or any other hazard. Applicability
in precast? Again, very limited. “These
are difficult to use in precast facilities,
because heights of the forms tend to be relatively
low,” admits Denis. “This doesn’t
allow room for the fall arrest system to activate
and provide deceleration. There is also the
issue of striking nearby forms or other structures.”
In situations where you have
several forms lined up side by side and no overhead
cranes, you might consider a fixed lifeline
that allows a worker to walk from form to form
and be hooked up to a body belt. “There
are some applications for this, but we haven’t
explored this option completely yet,”
states Americast’s Kincheloe.
A final problem that plagues
almost everyone in the industry is this: “Most
activities in precast facilities tend to be
short duration exposures,” continues Gravitec’s
Denis. “For example, it may take someone
an hour to set up fall protection, but the job
may only take 15 minutes. As such, from a business
point of view, traditional fall protection can
often be cost-prohibitive.”
What
Are Requirements?
Another challenge for precasters is determining
what OSHA requires in terms of fall protection.
If your plant is considered a manufacturing
facility, fall protection must be in place at
heights of 4 feet and above. In construction
facilities, it must be in place above 6 feet.
“This is another concern we have,”
states Carolina Precast’s Dunn. “We
aren’t sure how we should be classified.”
Unfortunately, guidance from OSHA can be fuzzy.
“For us, OSHA’s
interpretation has been that, if they visit
a four-walled building, it is considered a manufacturing
site, so the specification is 4 feet,”
says Americast’s Kincheloe. However, if
you’re pouring it outside with the use
of a crane and don’t have any walls, it’s
considered a construction site, and the specification
is 6 feet.
“In a technical sense,
I think precasters are manufacturers, and this
is the position we have adopted with respect
to other OSHA issues,” adds Oldcastle’s
Fiedler. “However, we have also explained
to OSHA that, if every precaster disappeared
overnight, you would see people at jobsites
pouring all of these products in place.”
This would place the workers in situations with
far less control, and they would also be working
around people in other trades. Plus they would
be allowed to work at 6 feet unprotected. “In
other words, the risk is increased, but the
requirements are less stringent,” he continues.
“OSHA didn’t deny this observation,
but on the other hand, they were not prepared
to concede an additional two feet in our favor.”
The
Best Solution
One solution everyone agrees will work, if it’s
possible to implement, is to “engineer
out” the need for fall protection in the
first place. “This involves a change in
process, procedure or equipment that eliminates
the need for a person to work above ground level,”
explains Gravitec’s Denis. “For
example, this might involve lowering forms so
they are below the four-foot level required
by OSHA.”
One solution in this area
that Oldcastle implemented was related to plugs
on the insides of the forms. Once the forms
were poured, someone had to climb to the top
with a hammer and knock off the plugs. Oldcastle
changed to a plug with a break-away feature,
eliminating the need to climb on top.
“As much as possible,
we design our plants with fall protection in
mind,” says John Higgins, director of
precast operations for Sherman-Dixie Concrete
Industries Inc. in Nashville, Tenn. “We
also purchase our forms to specific heights
whenever we can. We then use an OSHA-approved
rolling ladder with safety steps and safety
rails. Workers can actuate the buckets from
the ladder. This eliminates the need to climb
onto forms or ride on buckets.” The company
also uses self-consolidating concrete, so there
is no need to stand on the forms and operate
a vibrator. “These two strategies have
eliminated about 99 percent of our problems,”
he says. “The remaining 1 percent is discipline.
If employees do need to get on top of forms,
we make sure all of the oil and grease has been
removed and that the employees are wearing the
proper shoes.” Sherman-Dixie has had its
insurance carrier review its equipment and processes,
and it is quite happy with them. “This
has given us a feeling of confidence and assurance,”
adds Higgins.
Americast’s Kincheloe
agrees with the value of self-consolidating
concrete as a way to engineer out much of the
need for fall protection. “Currently,
about 75 percent to 80 percent of our products
are manufactured this way,” he says. “Most
of the remaining products are in plants located
in municipalities that don’t accept self-consolidating
concrete.”
Considering
Some Options
Assuming that you can’t engineer out every
hazard, what can work for fall protection? There
are several options to consider, each of which
has some potential advantages and, in many cases,
some disadvantages.
Fixed
Scaffolding. One option is to use fixed
handrails or guardrails, such as catwalks. One
benefit is that they require no training, and
there are virtually no maintenance costs. “On
some large, round forms and in plants where
we have overhead cranes, we have created some
fixed scaffolding in ‘void areas’
of the plant where the trolleys and bridges
can’t move due to structural limits,”
explains Kincheloe.
Carolina Precast also uses
catwalks as much as possible, which is a solution
for some standard forms. “However, for
things like box culvert forms and some others,
catwalks won’t work, because the forms
are all different sizes,” notes Dunn.
Another potential drawback
relates to the amount of “real estate”
available. “In many cases, it would require
twice as much space to install guardrails around
the forms,” notes Gravitec’s Denis.
“Also, if you use cranes, there may not
be enough clearance for concrete buckets to
make it over the top of the guard rails.”
“For a number of years,
we have been attempting to implement standard
guard railings,” says Oldcastle’s
Fiedler. In some circumstances, they have been
effective. In other applications, though, the
railings can create circumstances where the
employee will end up at greater risk or with
a physical impediment to work causing the employee
to change his work practices in such a way that
the railing provides no real benefit. “As
such, we are trying to find ways to design railings
and catwalks so they minimize the increase in
footprint on the plant floor and also do not
interfere with the pouring bucket,” he
says. “This can be a challenge, though,
especially in our plants where we only have
about 15 feet of hook height.”
Mobile
Scaffolding. Another option is mobile
scaffolding. “We have used some of this,
which, according to OSHA, isn’t required
to have handrails until you reach 10 feet,”
says Americast’s Kincheloe. “Fixed,
permanent scaffolding, on the other hand, must
have handrails if it’s higher than 4 feet.
The mobile scaffolding allows us to have an
open side against an 8-foot form, so employees
can do their work.”
Evan Corp.’s Duden also
encourages considering mobile scaffolding. “One
piece of equipment is a rolling access platform
with OSHA-approved handrails and anchors,”
he says. “It also has a height adjustment
feature.” One drawback, though, he admits,
is that it can take up a lot of floor space
when in use and even when in storage.
Nets.
Safety nets can be extended out at a
45 degree angle at the same height as the top
of the form. “This reduces the amount
of ‘real estate’ needed around forms,
and it also doesn’t extend higher than
the forms, so there is no clearance problem,”
says Denis.
“Telescope”
Systems. “In facilities that have
overhead cranes, one option is a rigid rail
system with a telescoping arm that moves out
into place to areas where fall protection is
required,” adds Evan’s Duden. “It
can then collapse back into the support structure
when the crane needs to be used. These are available
with hydraulic, pneumatic or manual controls.
Our customers have had a lot of success with
these.”
Training
Even if you do find a combination of fall protection
systems that will work for your particular needs,
your work still isn’t done. You also have
to arrange for the following:
