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6 episodes with fall protection
3 episodes with fall protection
5 episodes with fall protection
3 episodes with fall protection
3 episodes with fall protection
3 episodes with fall protection
3 episodes with fall protection
2 episodes with fall protection
2 episodes with fall protection
Phil is joined by Loui McCurley to discuss the intricacies of rope access and fall protection, emphasizing the importance of understanding various safety standards and the role they play in ensuring safety at heights. He highlights the differences between fall protection methods, the significance of training and competency, and the value of cross-industry knowledge sharing in enhancing safety practices. Rope access is a specific type of fall protection. Fall protection encompasses various methods to prevent falls. Understanding safety standards is crucial for compliance. Standards development involves diverse perspectives. Experience is essential for understanding safety systems. Competency involves recognizing hazards and taking action. Qualified individuals have relevant experience and education. Cross-industry collaboration enhances safety knowledge. Training should focus on practical understanding and experience. Knowledge sharing events foster innovation and safety improvements. Contact Loui - lmccurley@pmirope.com Contact Phil; Email - podcast@high5adventure.org Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/verticalplaypen/ Music and sound effects - https://www.epidemicsound.com/
Cody Rappoport, Director of Product Engineering, Fall Protection at WernerCo. and member of the ANSI/ASSP Z359 Committee, shares how to choose the proper fall protection equipment and controls based on the hazards present at the job site. He also discusses the importance of providing your workers proper fitting PPE and the role of shock absorbers […]
A discussion with Diversified Fall Protection's Philip Jacklin on what OSHA's Top 10 most common violations of FY2024 reveals about the safety of working at heights, what it doesn't tell us and what safety professionals can do to create safer workplaces.
In this conversation, Catherine and Sean discuss various topics, starting with personal updates about their lives, including new clothing purchases and a cat named Tow Truck. They then transition into a discussion about OSHA's recent fines and violations in the construction industry, highlighting specific case studies of companies facing significant penalties for safety violations. The conversation emphasizes the importance of workplace safety and the consequences of negligence in the construction field. In this conversation, Sean and Catherine discuss various workplace safety violations reported by OSHA, highlighting the serious consequences of negligence in the construction industry. They reflect on the importance of safety measures and the role of OSHA in protecting workers. The discussion then shifts to a lighter topic about the Ninja Creamy, a countertop ice cream maker, exploring branding strategies and the appeal of niche products. The episode concludes with a trivia segment focused on OSHA and construction safety regulations, emphasizing the importance of knowledge in maintaining workplace safety.
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Travis Nelson is the CEO of Diversified Fall Protection, the largest turnkey fall protection integrator in the U.S. for regulatory-driven systems and services. Nelson is a distinguished leader and influencer in the fall protection industry and brings over 20 years of industry experience to the position.Nelson's journey with DFP began in 2019, initially as Vice President of Engineering and later as Vice President of Strategy. His tenure at DFP commenced after the acquisition of PEAK Fall Protection, where Nelson served as managing partner and president for nearly 12 years.A trusted industry leader since 1994, Diversified Fall Protection (DFP) specializes in the design, fabrication and installation of complete fall protection solutions that keep workers safe from falls, one of the most common causes of workplace injury and fatality. The company minimizes customer liability and protects employees through a comprehensive system of OSHA-compliant fall protection solutions, education programs and an in-house engineering and design team. As a certified integrator of every major manufacturer of system components, DFP provides fall protection partnership for life through the systems we engineer, produce, install, and service.
For all of your consulting and training needs give us a call at 845-269-5772 or drop us an email at Jim@safetywars.com. WE NOW HAVE A LIVE SHOW MOST WEEKDAYS AT 8 TO 9 PM EST ON SAFETYFM.COM and on many video platforms as Safety Wars. We are on YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitch, Brighteon, Gab, Rumble, Twitter, and LinkedIn. WE ARE AVAILABLE ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLATFORM AS SAFETY WARS.
Footwear And Fall Protection On today's podcast, we'll be talking about footwear and fall protection. So - stay tuned. You can find the show notes to each episode, links to the information mentioned on the podcast, the social media platforms we're on, and anything else related to the podcast at WarehouseSafetyTips.com. If you're a seasoned Podcast Listener, this podcast will be different from most you listen to. It's based on exactly what the name implies - Warehouse Safety Tips. And since the people in that industry are busy - we know time is money so each episode will be as short and to the point as possible. And now that all that is out of the way - let's get to the Podcast! Footwear And Fall Protection In the industrial sectors of factories and warehouses, ensuring the safety and well-being of employees should ALWAYS be top of mind. Adherence to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) guidelines helps maintain a secure working environment and boosts productivity and morale among workers. Keeping with the topic of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) there are 2 areas Safety Managers need to focus on: footwear and fall protection. Here are five tips that align with OSHA's guidelines to mitigate risks and protect workers. Number One: Conduct Thorough Hazard Assessments for Footwear Requirements Every workplace is unique, making site-specific safety footwear essential. Conduct a comprehensive hazard assessment to identify potential risks, such as falling objects, sharp objects, or electrical hazards, and determine the appropriate type of footwear required for safety. This approach ensures that the chosen footwear provides the necessary protection against the identified risks, aligning with OSHA's emphasis on tailored safety solutions. Number Two: Implement Comprehensive Fall Protection Plans Recognizing the many risks associated with working at elevations, OSHA mandates that anyone working above 4 feet must be provided with and use fall protection equipment. This includes maintenance workers, not just those on "man-up" lifts or retrieving elevated loads. A comprehensive fall protection plan must detail the proper equipment, machinery, and training for all employees potentially exposed to elevated risks, ensuring a holistic approach to fall safety. Number Three: Invest in Quality Safety Footwear Given the crucial role of footwear in preventing workplace injuries, investing in quality safety shoes or boots that meet OSHA standards is vital. This means selecting footwear that offers adequate protection against specific hazards identified in the hazard assessment. Features include slip-resistant soles, puncture-resistant materials, and proper support and comfort to minimize worker fatigue. Number Four: Regular Training and Drills on Fall Protection Proper training on using fall protection equipment is as crucial as the equipment itself. Regularly scheduled training sessions and drills ensure all employees know how to use, inspect, and maintain their equipment correctly. This complies with OSHA regulations and fosters a culture of safety and preparedness among workers. Number Five: Continuous Monitoring and Updating of Safety Measures Safety in the workplace is an ongoing process. To adapt to new hazards or changes in work processes, regularly review and update your safety measures, including footwear requirements and fall protection plans. Engaging with employees for feedback and conducting periodic safety audits are effective strategies to identify areas for improvement and ensure compliance with OSHA guidelines. As with ALL our tips - make sure to follow the rules and guidelines of your specific facility. Prioritizing safety through appropriate footwear and rigorous fall protection measures is essential in factories and warehouses. By following these OSHA-aligned tips, employers can create a safer, more productive work environment that protects their most valuable asset: their employees. Thank you for being part of another episode of Warehouse Safety Tips. Until we meet next time - have a great week, and STAY SAFE! Before moving on - here's a word from one of our sponsors. If you've ever been to or worked in a warehouse - you know just how important safety is to management and staff. It's almost impossible to go 10 steps without seeing Safety Tape, Angles, Signs, and/or products. These items show us how to be safe and avoid danger in the workplace. And if you're looking for the best products to make this happen - look no further than Mighty Line! Mighty Line Floor Signs / Floor Markings offer the best industrial products! Go to MightyLineTape.com/SafetyTips to request a Sample Pack of their incredible Safety Signs and Floor Markings. What makes Mighty Line the superior choice in keeping your facility safe and productive? Mighty Line Tape is the strongest floor tape on the market and has a beveled edge that increases durability for industrial brush scrubbers, forklifts, and heavy industrial wheel traffic. Easy installation and removal thanks to Mighty Line's peel-and-stick backing. You can apply and reapply it during installation - and it leaves no sticky residue should you need to remove it. This allows the ability to change workflow areas quickly and easily - and not have the downtime associated with painting or using floor markings that leave behind a mess when you remove them. Mighty Line Tape is 7 times thicker than the average Safety Floor Tape. Mighty Line's Signs and Markings come in various shapes, colors, and sizes. And if they don't have what you're looking for in stock - their Customize It Program allows you to create exactly what you're looking for. Mighty Line offers a Limited 3-Year Warranty on their Floor Signs and Markings. And last but certainly not least - Mighty Line Products are Patented and PROUDLY Made in the USA! We're proud to have Mighty Line as THE Official Floor Sign / Floor Marking Company for the Warehouse Safety Tips Podcast and Site. Again - Go to MightyLineTape.com/SafetyTips to request a Sample Pack of their incredible Safety Signs and Floor Markings. If you visit WarehouseSafetyTips.com - you'll find the Show Notes for this episode. Thank you for listening to Warehouse Safety Tips - and have a SAFE day! ______________________________________________ If you didn't notice - we're now under the Safety Stripes Podcast Network with our partner Mighty Line. Be sure to watch or listen to ALL episodes of Warehouse Safety Tips and Mighty Line Monday Minute - with Wes Wyatt and Mighty Line's Innovative Safety Solutions Director. Audio: https://audioboom.com/channels/5013934-safety-stripes-by-mighty-line-floor-tape-the-best-workplace-safety-podcast Video: https://vimeo.com/mightylinefloortape
Occupational Health & Safety's Executive Editor David Kopf and Content Editor Robert Yaniz, Jr. kick off the new year by talking about a few safety initiatives and trends that will impact the next 12 months. Those developments, include efforts to combat workplace overdose deaths, address worker mental health, child labor investigations and more “tailored” PPE design. Additionally, Kopf and Yaniz also preview some of the editorial efforts OH&S has in the works for 2024, including our webinar programs, event coverage, online features and more.
My guest this week is Andrea Martin, a fall protection specialist from 3M. Fall protection has been on my list of topics for quite some time now and I have finally tracked down the perfect guest. Fall protection is important for anyone working above 6 feet. I have personally had a few misses in my career due to lack of training. So I wanted to bring Andrea on to provide some great info on equipment selction, inspection, uses and storage. Check out the 3M Skilled Docuseries Here Follow Andrea on Instagram @safety_chick Arc Junkies Podcast: Instagram: @Arcjunkiespodcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arcjunkiespodcast9253 Email: Show@arcjunkies.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-becker-45407b72?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_contact_details%3BKipEwR3uQXCmCjaEfNzo6w%3D%3D Arc Junkies Website: https://arcjunkies.com Arc junkies Merch: https://shop.threadmob.com/arcjunkie/shop/home Underground Metal Works: https://www.underground-metalworks.com/ Friends of the Show: Rockmount Research and Alloys, Inc. Rockmountwelding.com Instagram: @Rockmountwelding Use ARCJUNKIES10 for 10% off all Abrasives and Consumables Use AJP at checkout to get 1lb. of Tartan AAA when you spend $250 on Rockmount Products. Outlaw Leather LLC Outlawleather.com Instagram: @outlawleatherusa Use ARCJUNKIES for 15% off all in-stock leather goods Everlast Welders Instagram: @everlastwelders YouTube: Everlast Welders Online: https://bit.ly/37xJstI Use Codeword ARCJUNKIES at checkout to get upgraded to a free Nova Foot Pedal and TIG Torch with the purchase of any machine that comes with a stock foot pedal and TIG Torch. Strong Hand Tools Stronghandtool.com/arcjunkies Instagram @Strong_hand_tools ISOTUNES: Instagram: @isotunesaudio Online: https://shop.isotunes.com/arcjunkies10. Use ARCJUNKIES10 at checkout and save $10 on your purchase
In another compelling episode of Safety Shorts, host Libby Pritchard introduces a special guest, Jennifer Miles, a seasoned safety professional with 16 years of expertise currently affiliated with Sales Solutions. Jennifer's passion for safety and her dedication to saving lives serve as a true source of inspiration. In this episode, the focus delves deeply into the critical topic of fall protection when working at heights, a subject that has witnessed a concerning increase in fatalities within the industry this year. Join Libby and Jennifer in this enlightening episode to help make a positive change in the mining industry and ensure that every miner returns home safely. Episode Highlights: The alarming statistics behind fall-related fatalities in the US The importance of having a comprehensive fall protection plan Best practices for reducing fall hazards in mining operations The significance of proper training and equipment usage The role of secure anchor points in fall prevention The benefits of mobile platforms and scaffolding The critical need for annual fall protection training Toolbox Talk Discussion Questions: In this episode, Jennifer Miles talks about how slips, trips and falls are the leading cause of injuries and fatalities. What is one thing that we can do on a day-to-day basis to protect ourselves and our coworkers? Why do you think that many people believe that fall fatalities only happen at extreme heights? Does anyone have a story about a time where they were working at heights? Quotes: "Most people think that a fatality from a fall has to be from an extreme height to cause a death. That's not the case." "The mining industry is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world." "By providing them with the proper protection and training regarding slips, trips, and falls, we can help save these lives." "This can be a very dangerous industry. But we do have the controls to prevent these types of accidents and injuries." "Working at heights is something that we face often in this industry, and there's actions that we can take." "It is so important to reflect on those, to remember them, to take what we can from those." Links: National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association website
Today we discuss the recent settlement of the case between OSHA and the National Chimney Sweep Guild. The case was in response to the updated Walking and Working Surfaces standard way back in 2016/2017. What does it mean. We will then discuss the normal OSHA News from their recent press releases. For all of your consulting and training needs give us a call at 845-269-5772 or drop us an email at Jim@safetywars.com. WE NOW HAVE A LIVE SHOW MOST WEEKDAYS AT 8 TO 9 PM EST ON SAFETYFM.COM and on many video platforms as Safety Wars. We are on YouTube, Facebook Live, Brighteon, Gab, Rumble, Twitter, and LinkedIn. #jimpoesl #jcptechnical #safetywars #jayallen #safetyfm #Chimneysweeps #fallprotection
Body: Fall protection consistently ranks first on OSHA's Top 10 safety violations, with many falls occurring from rooftops. Understanding these risks and implementing safety measures is crucial. In this episode, Daniel Huntington, General Manager at Kee Safety Inc. and a seasoned compliance educator and rooftop safety trainer, delves into the four primary danger zones on rooftops and how safety professionals can better protect workers in these areas. Special Thanks to This Episode's Sponsors, Kee Safety: Kee Safety is the leading expert and global manufacturer of safety components and fall protection systems. They are fully committed to Separating People from Hazards. Established in 1934, Kee Safety has a proud history of engineering, manufacturing, and supplying the most trusted fall protection solutions, safety railing systems, and safe access equipment for working at height. To learn more, visit www.keesafety.com
Kevin Denis, chair of the ANSI/ASSP Z359.2 subcommittee, joins to discuss the latest update to the Z359.2 standard, which establishes minimum requirements for a comprehensive managed fall protection program. He also shares tools and techniques for protecting workers at height. ANSI/ASSP Z359.2-2023: Minimum Requirements for a Comprehensive Managed Fall Protection Program
We are joined on the podcast again by Loui McCurley, of PMI ropes and SPRAT (Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians). In this interview, Loui shares her invaluable insights on the critical topic of rescue plans, emphasizing their importance in ensuring the safety of individuals participating in ropes courses and similar activities. We delve into the essential components of a rescue plan. Loui offers practical advice and guidelines for creating effective rescue plans, highlighting key factors such as risk assessment, emergency procedures, communication protocols, and the significance of ongoing training for staff. Suspension trauma, a potentially life-threatening condition, also finds its place in our discussion. Loui sheds light on this physiological phenomenon that can occur during a fall arrest situation and explains the detrimental effects it can have on the body. She shares insights on preventive measures and the importance of prompt rescue interventions to mitigate the risks associated with suspension trauma. Looking to the future, we explore Loui McCurley's perspectives and hopes for the growth of challenge courses and the rope access industry. Tune in to this captivating conversation with Loui McCurley to gain a deeper understanding of rescue plans, the significance of staff training in ropes courses, the dangers of suspension trauma, and valuable insights into the future of challenge courses and the rope access industry. Note: SPRAT (Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians) is a non-profit organization that promotes safe rope access work practices, provides certifications, and establishes industry standards. Learn more about PMI - https://pmirope.com/ Learn more about SPRAT - https://sprat.org/ Connect with Loui - lmccurley@pmirope.com Music and sound effects - epidemicsound.com
In this episode Phil had the privilege of sitting down with Loui McCurley, an expert in fall protection and rope access, CEO of PMI (Pigeon Mountain Industries) and original founder of SPRAT (Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians). One of the key aspects of fall protection is understanding the distinction between fall positioning, fall arrest, and fall prevention. Loui guides us through these different approaches, illuminating how each method serves a unique purpose in safeguarding individuals working at heights. Loui also delves into the contrasting approaches of active fall protection and passive fall protection. Clear communication is vital in the realm of fall protection, and Loui emphasizes the importance of using the correct terminology when describing fall protection systems and equipment. She discusses how accurate terminology eliminates confusion and ensures effective communication between professionals, workers, and regulatory bodies, ultimately promoting a safer work environment. Standards play a pivotal role in fall protection, and Loui highlights their significance in maintaining consistent safety practices. She delves into the process of creating fall protection standards, discussing the key principles that inform their development and implementation. Furthermore, she enlightens us on how these standards principles can be effectively taught to professionals, empowering them to uphold the highest safety standards within their respective industries. In the world of fall protection, being authorized, competent, and qualified are distinct designations defined by OSHA. Loui explains the nuanced differences between these terms, shedding light on the specific requirements and expectations associated with each. Listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the qualifications and competencies necessary to ensure optimal worker safety and compliance with regulatory guidelines. Join us for an incredibly informative conversation with Loui McCurley, as we explore the realm of fall protection, its intricacies, and its profound impact on worker safety. Whether you're an industry professional or someone interested in height safety, this episode promises to deepen your understanding of fall protection, leaving you equipped with valuable insights to promote a safer working environment. Be sure to check out the next episode where we continue the conversation with Loui, this time discussing rescue principles and techniques. Learn more about PMI - https://pmirope.com/ Learn more about SPRAT - https://sprat.org/ Connect with Loui - lmccurley@pmirope.com Music and sound effects - epidemicsound.com
Heidi J. Ellsworth visits with Rob Drew and Jeremy Grimes of FlashCo to discuss their new line of fall protection products. They talk about the importance of permanent fall protection versus temporary applications along with a full overview of the new line of Flashco safety products. Understanding how critical safety is to roofing contractors, they emphasize the importance of proper training and how permanent fall protection saves lives long after the roof is installed. Learn more at RoofersCoffeeShop.com! Sign up for the Week in Roofing!
6 Rules of Fall Protection #construction #safety #fallprotection #fallprevention #underthehardhat
Today we continue our discussion about Fall Protection with a discussion about harnesses. #construciton #safety #fallprotection #fallprevention #underthehardhat
This week, join Doug as he delves into the crucial topic of fall protection and jobsite safety. In this enlightening conversation, Doug is joined by two industry experts, Mark Damon, CEO of Damon, Inc., and Jeff Springer, Business Development Manager at PMG.Contact Mark Damon:Email: damonfallprotection@gmail.comWebsite: damonfallprotectiontraining.comContact Jeff Springer:Email: jeffs@pmg-safety.comWebsite: pmg-safety.comDoug Fletcher can be reached at doug@fletchersafety.comIf you have any topics you'd like Doug to address, feel free to reach out via email or shoot him a message on LinkedI__________________________________Much gratitude to our Sponsors and Supporters!CCS Group - Cheyenne Wohlford https://ccsgrouponline.comFalewitch Construction Services - John Falewitch https://www.falewitch.comWork Safe Consulting - Danni Arroyo at 402-802-6316NDOL – Onsite Consultation - Jim Cover Jim.Cover@nebraska.govMak-U-Safe - https://makusafe.com/Mid America Martial Arts: https://midamericamartialarts.com/Supporters:Ayars & Ayars: https://www.ayarsayars.com/Dale Kugler________________________________A Hurrdat Media Production. Hurrdat Media is a digital media and commercial video production company based in Omaha, NE. Find more podcasts on the Hurrdat Media Network and learn more about our other services today on HurrdatMedia.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Today we begin our series on Fall Protection / Fall Prevention with a discussion about Guardrails. #construction #safety #underthehardhat #fallprotection #fallprevention #guardrails
Safety Wars Live a special AM Edition. Holdover from 5-1-2023. Day 1 of Fall Protection. We discuss construction standards related to fall protection. We had some internet issues in Rockland County, NY and I had to upload this today. I have a program coming up this evening. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide please seek help. For all of your consulting and training needs give us a call at 845-269-5772 or drop us an email at Jim@safetywars.com. WE NOW HAVE A LIVE SHOW EVERY Weekday AT 8 TO 9 PM EST ON SAFETYFM.COM WE ARE AVAILABLE ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLATFORM AS SAFETY WARS. #Jimpoesl #safetywars #safetyfm #jayallen #HOP #Humanandorganizationalperformanc #safety #osha #safetywarslive #jcptechnicalservices #safetytraining #mediabias #happyholidays #suicide #coldstress #smartgoals #disasterprep #forklifts #energypolicy #2023 #HappyNewYear #REspirators #supervisortraining #Firstaidcpraed #suddencardiacarrest #bills #bengals #sexualharrassment #scaffolding #scaffoldingcollapse #workplacedeath #constructionsafety #nuclearwar #nuclear #radiological #disasterresponseworker #poweroutage #earthquakes #Fire #war #nuclear #bullying #politicalassasination #OHIO #EASTPALISTINE #RAILWAYCAR #alisonteal #alisonsadventures This program was on fall protection standards. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide please seek help. For all of your consulting and training needs give us a call at 845-269-5772 or drop us an email at Jim@safetywars.com. WE NOW HAVE A LIVE SHOW EVERY Weekday AT 8 TO 9 PM EST ON SAFETYFM.COM WE ARE AVAILABLE ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLATFORM AS SAFETY WARS. #Jimpoesl #safetywars #safetyfm #jayallen #HOP #Humanandorganizationalperformanc #safety #osha #safetywarslive #jcptechnicalservices #safetytraining #mediabias #happyholidays #suicide #coldstress #smartgoals #disasterprep #forklifts #energypolicy #2023 #HappyNewYear #REspirators #supervisortraining #Firstaidcpraed #suddencardiacarrest #bills #bengals #sexualharrassment #scaffolding #scaffoldingcollapse #workplacedeath #constructionsafety #nuclearwar #nuclear #radiological #disasterresponseworker #poweroutage #earthquakes #Fire #war #nuclear #bullying #politicalassasination #OHIO #EASTPALISTINE #RAILWAYCAR #alisonteal #alisonsadventures
Heidi J. Ellsworth virtually heads east to visit with NRCA safety experts Cheryl Ambrose and Rich Trewyn who are passionate about providing ongoing safety and specifically fall protection education. With OSHA's National Safety Stand-Down set for May 1-5, 2023, Cheryl and Rich will review the key elements to fall protection including building safety plans that address failure to plan, training and self-rescue. This is one of the most important topics in the roofing industry today and a podcast you do not want to miss. Learn more at RoofersCoffeeShop.com! Sign up for the Week in Roofing!
According to OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), falls are the leading cause of death in the construction industry. In 2020, approximately 351 out of 1,008 construction fatalities were due to fatal falls to a lower level, which accounts for about a third of all on-the-job deaths in the construction industry. These deaths cause significant problems for workers, their families, and the construction companies they work for. However, these deaths are preventable; therefore, what equipment can be adopted to safeguard workers from falls? On today's episode of the Conversations from the Edge podcast, host Michelle Dawn Mooney speaks with Greg Crumpton, the Vice President of Service Logic, Nathan Sollenberger and Ryan Kerfien, Co-Creators of the SafTDek product, about the role of SafTDek in optimizing safety for construction workers. “The SafTDek Condenser Railing system was designed to prevent falls at heights. This product becomes useful when workers need to climb to reach a certain height to do their jobs. The financial implications of falls are quite significant, with each fall costing the company about $100,000. If there is a fatality, it quickly exceeds a million. This safety system is an excellent opportunity for people on-site to conduct pre-safety audits to ensure maximum protection against falls,” explained Sollenberger. “Service Logic is interested in the SafTDek Condenser Railing system because it is essential to provide better safety platforms for our thousands of employees. Many clients always want an assurance that contractors working on their job are being safe. This is to avoid litigation issues. Therefore, SafTDek is a great tool to build a great relationship between contractors and their clients,” noted Crumpton. “Workers do not have to worry about risks when they have the right safety tool such as the SafTDek Condenser Railing system. Coming up with something that makes other people safer is something that makes me proud. About 320,000 replacement fan motors are sold every year in the U.S., and this is just on-demand service replacement jobs. We should be up on these units quarterly doing fan inspection- this is lots of trips to the top of an air-cooled condenser. When you think about that across various companies, the need for SafTDek as a safety tool becomes paramount,” added Kerfien. Nathan Sollenberger is a Co-Creator of the SafTDek product. He has worked as a project engineer with Hoffman & Hoffman, Inc. and has worked in the industry since 2014. Ryan Kerfien is a Co-Creator of the SafTDek product. He received a B.S. in Technology Education from the State University of New York at Oswego and an M.BA. in Business Administration and Management from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte Belk College of Business. Greg Crumpton is Vice President of Service Logic. He attended Clayton State College and studied business; he attended Georgia Tech University and studied finance and accounting, and AMA courses on business fundamentals. Crumpton has been with Service Logic for over 8 years.
In this episode of the Global Science of Safety Podcast, join co-hosts Mark Reggers and Laurie Wells as they discuss full body harnesses with 3M's David Baker. David is the 3M Personal Safety Division EMEA Fall Protection Application Engineering Leader based in the United Kingdom. Full-body harnesses are used in many segments including construction, oil and gas, utilities, and heavy manufacturing and transportation. The purpose of a full-body harness is to help arrest a fall from heights, distribute the impact forces around the body, and help ensure the body remains in an upright plane. Tune in to learn more about the selection and fit of this important piece of personal protective equipment. The Science of Safety Podcast is presented by the 3M Personal Safety Division. This is a podcast that is curious about the science and systems behind workplace health and safety with a focus on personal protective equipment (or PPE) used to help keep workers healthy and safe.
Rick and Michael have a riveting conversation lined up this week on OSHA oops! They will be talking about guardrails - an issue that is not only incredibly important but one that can result in costly fines, as evidenced by the $6k fine that one unfortunate company had to pay for the lack of guardrails on their working platforms. Follow us on our social media:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GotSafetyTwitter: https://twitter.com/GotSafetyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/realgotsafety/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/54294408/admin/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realgotsafetyFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GotSafetyApp
Today we discuss Fall Protection and look specifically at anchor points. Anchor points must be able to support 5,000 pounds.
This week on #underthehardhat we discuss #fallprotection and #harnesses. #construction #safety
Chrissy Befanis Wellness Rehab Project Manager “I feel I was born an Occupational Therapist!” Says Chrissy Befanis Wellness Rehab Project Manager and Occupational Therapist at Geer. Chrissy aims to support Geer clients in achieving their highest level of function and credits Andrea Gamble and Kevin O'Connell for assisting in enhancing her career within the Wellness program at Geer. “My goals as an OT align with the mission and values of Geer and the Wellness program represents exactly who I am.”
Chrissy Befanis Wellness Rehab Project Manager “I feel I was born an Occupational Therapist!” Says Chrissy Befanis Wellness Rehab Project Manager and Occupational Therapist at Geer. Chrissy aims to support Geer clients in achieving their highest level of function and... Read More ›
Did you know that over 30% of construction worker deaths are caused by falls? Protect yourself from death or injury with the latest safety harnesses from Fall Protection Distributors. Go to http://wlfpk.co/G0xkwfBz (http://wlfpk.co/G0xkwfBz) for more information.
This episode is also available as a blog post: http://constructiontales.com/2022/09/06/safety-topic-of-today-fall-protection/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/leslie-m-jasper/support
Welcome back to the Science of Safety Podcast. In part two of our series on fall protection selection co-hosts Mark Reggers and Laurie Wells welcome Heidi Lopez-Hidalgo, a global Senior Application Engineer in 3M's Personal Safety Division. In this episode, they continue the discussion on the ABCs of fall protection with a focus on the DEFs (descent and rescue, education, and fall protection for tools). Tune in to learn more about keeping workers safe while working at heights. The first global season of the Science of Safety Podcast is presented by the 3M Personal Safety Division. This is a podcast that is curious about the science and systems behind workplace health and safety with a focus on personal protective equipment (or PPE) used to help keep workers healthy and safe.
Falls are the #1 fatality hazard in construction. So why don't more workers protect themselves and what do they need to know? Luke Borlee with almost 20 years experience in both the military and civilian life does a deeper dive into these questions.For more content such as webinars or training class information, go to www.trenchsafetyevents.comDisclaimer:United Rentals is providing this podcast for informational purposes only. The information, statements, comments, views, and opinions provided in the podcast are general in nature, and are not a substitute for situation-specific or site-specific advice, instruction or supervision. Consulting with engineers and other experts regarding specific circumstances, applicable rules, and applicable regulations is always recommended. No guarantee is given regarding the accuracy of any statements or opinions made on the podcast.The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by United Rentals employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the views of United Rentals. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this podcast are hereby expressly disclaimed.No part of this podcast may, without United Rentals' prior written consent, be reproduced, redistributed, published, copied or duplicated in any form, by any means.
Did you know that every year falls account for more than one-third of all construction fatalities? In fact, one out of every four deaths in the construction industry is due to a fall. Most falls occur when roofers are working on sloped roofs or when they are working around other openings such as skylights. To help prevent falls, roofers must be trained in proper safety procedures and always wear fall protection gear, such as a harness, when required to work on a roof. Furthermore, only qualified roofers should be allowed to work on a roof – in many jurisdictions, a special license is required to perform roofing work. And special training should also be provided for those who carry supplies to the roofers, even if they are not performing roofing duties.In Episode 29 of the OSHA Oops Podcast, join safety experts Michael and Rick as they discuss some common roofing accidents, fall protection requirements, how to avoid an injury-related citation, and who should be wearing a harness. This week's featured citation cost one California company more than $16,000, and worse, an employee with extensive injuries after a 9 ft. fall with no fall protection.Follow us on our social media:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GotSafetyTwitter: https://twitter.com/GotSafetyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/realgotsafety/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/54294408/admin/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realgotsafetyFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GotSafetyApp
In this episode, Ted and Barb talk to Bob Molitor. He founded a business in the industrial distribution industry and focused on the manufacture and distribution of overhead material handling equipment. Through the years he developed experience in sales, marketing, production, operations, human resources, finance and administration, banking, negotiations, and government regulations. Recently he invested in a start-up in this same industry, Entrepreneurs helping Entrepreneurs. They discuss the importance of health and safety in the Rigging and Fall Protection areas. Bob provides insights on how to keep workers safe in these high-risk environments. Ted and Barb emphasize the importance of following proper health and safety procedures when working with rigging equipment, and Bob provides tips on how to identify potential hazards. This is a must-listen for anyone who works in or around rigging or fall protection areas! References: https://safetyfm.com/ (Safety FM) https://www.healthandsafetynow.com/ (Total Health & Safety Solutions) https://foxcities.score.org/mentors/bob-molitor (Bob Molitor)
In this episode of the Science of Safety Podcast, co-hosts Mark Reggers and Laurie Wells, along with special guest Greg Peterson, a Specialist Application Engineer with 3M Australia, discuss working at heights and selection of fall protection equipment. Tune in to learn more about the hierarchy of controls, and the ABCs (anchorage, body support, connectors) of fall protection. This is the first episode of a two-part series on fall protection selection. The first global season of the Science of Safety Podcast is presented by the 3M Personal Safety Division. This is a podcast that is curious about the science and systems behind workplace health and safety with a focus on personal protective equipment (or PPE) used to help keep workers healthy and safe.
Working at heights can be dangerous, and falls are one of the leading causes of workplace injuries. For Episode 25 of the OSHA Oops Podcast, safety experts Michael and Rick discuss why it's important to use fall protection when working with order pickers. And learn how much a fine for a serious injury cost one California company. Order pickers are a type of forklift that is used to move and select inventory from high shelves. While they offer a high degree of productivity, they also come with a high risk of falling if not used properly. Fortunately, there are several fall protection options available for order pickers. These include safety nets, fall arrest systems, and work positioning systems. By using the proper fall protection, you can help to prevent serious injuries.www.GotSafety.com to learn more about our services and how we can help your company avoid fines.Follow us on our social media:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GotSafetyTwitter: https://twitter.com/GotSafetyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/realgotsafety/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/54294408/admin/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realgotsafetyFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GotSafetyApp
Do your employees need a refresher on fall protection and fall arrest systems? We have you covered with this quick talk!
Peter Koch began his safety career as a Snowmaker and Ski Patroller at Sunday River ski resort. As Patrol Director and then Risk Manager for the resort he worked with staff to prevent injuries, but when an incident occurred, Pete would then actively assist the injured worker get back to full duty. It was at Sunday River where he first connected fitness, performance, and workplace injury prevention.Now a Safety Management Consultant with Maine Employers Mutual Insurance Company since 2003, Peter has worked with resorts throughout the East to help them enhance and manage their safety programs, addressing a wide range of hazards from ski/ride related injuries to housekeeping and food service ergonomics to Lock Out Tag Out and even High-Angle Rescue.MEMIC's mission is to make workers' comp work better with compassion, trusted partnerships, and relentless commitment to workforce safety. One of the many ways they do that is through the bi-weekly MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast that Peter hosts. The podcast is dedicated to discussions about workplace safety with experts and industry leaders around the nation. You can check it out at www.memic.com/podcast.Peter is an instructor with the National Ski Patrol, Eastern Division, holds current certifications in Tower Rescue, Fall Protection, Wilderness Rescue, the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians T and is an OSHA – Authorized general industry and construction standards outreach instructor. No matter the task, position, or job, Peter sees a connection between physical preparation, workplace injury prevention, quality, and productivity.Learn more at memic.comThe Safety Experts Podcast: https://www.memic.com/workplace-safety/safety-experts-podcastWelcome to the Strength For Your Purpose Podcast where Dr. Phil Finemore, PT, DPT, Cert. DN, Cert. VRS, owner of WorkFitME Mobile Physical Therapy, has a goal of helping busy Maine professionals find the mental, emotional, and physical strength to fulfill their true purpose in life. The mission is to approach the topic of wellness holistically and show you how outer and inner strength can spill over to all areas of life, creating waves of positive change in its path.It would mean so much to me if you took the time to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Please share with family, friends, and coworkers so they too can learn more about how to find their inner strength to fulfill their true purpose in life.Find Strength For Your Purpose Podcast on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/strengthforyourpurposepodIG: @strengthforyourpurposepodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5x3bhLFf-I2hUxQuXgMdSQFind Dr. Phil and WorkFitME on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/phil.finemore and www.facebook.com/workfitmeIG: @drphilptdpt and @workfitmeTwitter: @drphilptdpt and @workfitmeLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drphilptdpt and www.linkedin.com/company/workfitmeEmail: drphilptdpt@gmail.com
An encore presentation of episodes featuring members of the ANSI/ASSP Z359 Committee on Fall Protection and Fall Restraint. These episodes offer expert insights into two very important aspects of fall protection and fall restraint, self-retracting devices and anchorage connectors. The first episode features Dan Henn of the Z359.14 subcommittee on Safety Requirements for Self-Retracting Devices […]
In this episode, Brock and Dave talk about safety, OSHA regulations, Fall Protection, and Christmas. Outro
According to the National Safety Council, following highway crashes, falls to a lower level is the third leading fatal workplace event and the fifth leading event resulting in cases with days away from work. In many cases fall protection is relatively simple. Put up some sort of engineering control that prevents the workers from access the unprotected edge – like guardrails. Other times, the work being done requires a personal fall arrest system with the anchor located at or near floor level. Not all systems can do this and making the wrong choice can be fatal. On this episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I speak with David Kozlowsky, President and Owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine about the leading edge in fall protection and what goes into picking the right system. Peter Koch: [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, I'm your host, Peter Koch. According to the National Safety Council, following highway crashes, falls to a lower level is the third leading fatal workplace event and the fifth leading event, resulting in cases with days away from work. So, yeah, you guessed it. We're talking about falls and fall protection today. Getting back to the stats in 2019, out of the eight hundred and eighty eight thousand nonfatal injuries and illnesses involving days away from work, 711 workers died and 48,000 were injured in 2019. And if you dig a little bit deeper to put some perspective on the seriousness of those injuries caused by a fall to a lower level, the median days away from work were 22, compared to only eight days for other exposures. So that makes it a little bit different. You can almost be assured [00:01:00] if someone falls from a height to a lower level and gets hurt, they're going to have a more substantial injury than someone who might just fall on the same level or maybe a slip trip without a fall. So and in many cases, fall protection. When you think about falling from a height or falling to a lower level fall protection can be relatively simple. You put up some sort of engineering control that prevents the workers from accessing the unprotected edge like guardrails. But other times the work is done or near the unprotected edge and the anchor location, or the design of the anchor doesn't allow for a restraint system or the location itself doesn't allow for those guardrails, and it becomes a little bit more challenging. So a good example of that may be installing metal decking for flooring in a multistory building. Or even if you're a residential carpenter building a deck that's more than six feet off the ground. There's plenty of complications when you're doing leading edge work, like when the unprotected edge has a sharp or narrow radius or your anchor is [00:02:00] below your D ring. And those can combine to render traditional fall protection solutions like a personal fall arrest system with a shock absorbing lanyard ineffective and to confuse matters even more if you look out to the experts. Well, when you're choosing that fall resolution and you jump out to the OSHA standard, or maybe if you go up to the ANSI standards, they use the term leading edge in different ways. Peter Koch: [00:02:25] So on today's podcast, to help us explore the leading edge as it applies to fall protection and clear up some confusion about best practices, we have David Kozlowsky, president and owner of Safe Approach right here in Portland, Maine, and led by David Safe Approach their team designs and builds fall protection systems from harnesses, anchors and lifelines to safety netting and custom fall protection worksite solutions. And over the years, they've developed some really creative fall prevention solutions for a variety of different industries. And so I'm actually here [00:03:00] in David's office today. We're doing the podcast Offsite. We got tired of doing the WebEx and Zoom things, so we're in person doing it together. We just took a tour of the shop floor and saw where the magic happens, so it's pretty cool. So David, you're getting to be a regular here on the podcast. So welcome back. David Kozlowsky: [00:03:16] Thank you, Peter. I appreciate it. These are fun. I like doing them, so it's good to good to come back. Thanks for having me. Peter Koch: [00:03:22] It's awesome. So before we jump into the topic, I want to kind of pick your brain some more. So is there anything new on the horizon for safe approach or in the fall protection industry? David Kozlowsky: [00:03:32] There are a few things that we're working on as a as a company. There's a few products that are not necessarily ready for the market yet, but there are some items that I have been working on long term. I've been working on a self rescue device, got some neat ideas on that. It'll be kind of revolutionary if it does come out. So I don't want to give away too many secrets, but it's a way for we've [00:04:00] been approached several times in the past years, especially with actually the new aerial work platform standard, which I understand you're going to be talking to somebody about with self rescue. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to develop a reasonably seamless way where someone can have something attached to them that's moderately unobtrusive that would allow them to work as normal. And then if they were to fall off of something and rescue was not easily or readily available, actually be able to rescue themselves by lowering themselves to the ground. Peter Koch: [00:04:37] That's a great idea and a very challenging problem to manage within the workplace. And it's one of the conversations that I have with all my policyholders and clients from around. That's the part of the plan that they're missing is the rescue part. David Kozlowsky: [00:04:52] And it's the item itself is when I first started looking at it, it really seemed like such a simple concept to me. [00:05:00] There's lots of defenders on the market, especially for climbing, I mean, this is a regular occurrence. These people use these types of things, but when you started, as you do with everything in fall protection, when you start trying to figure out how to make it at least reasonably universal for everybody to purchase and sell and not custom for each individual. And when you start looking at the foolproof factor, we try to make something that is easy to use as possible. And there's fewer ways for the user to make a mistake, especially in this application. When you're talking about probably being scared hanging, who knows how far above and you're nervous and you're shaking. And you know, the more things that you have to think about or do the likelihood of making a mistake or failing at it just goes up exponentially. So when I started factoring in different things, like different weights of people and having to arrest the fall in different ways of being able to go from a fall arrest [00:06:00] to actually disconnecting the fall arrest onto something else and again having it foolproof and having as fewer functions as possible. I bit off a lot. It's a it's a challenging task, but we're there. We're working on it and I don't want to promise of when it'll be out, but it's definitely on the horizon, something we're working on. We're working on some ladder stuff. The ladder standard changed in 2018. So there's, you know, even though that was a few years ago, they gave people till twenty thirty six to kind of modify and update their ladders that have cages. And so we've started to notice a slight uptick in people, you know, trying to take that serious and trying to be proactive. So we're working on a few things to try to get ahead of the curve on that, too. So when people really do start working on all those ladders there's got to be a million of them out there and people will start having to retrofit those. Peter Koch: [00:06:56] They will. And that'll probably happen in twenty thirty five, David Kozlowsky: [00:06:59] 2035, exactly [00:07:00] if they if they start that early, they have until November of 2036. Peter Koch: [00:07:05] So yeah, David Kozlowsky: [00:07:07] I expect around August, September, I'll start getting calls. Peter Koch: [00:07:13] You know, it's a really great point changing of the ladder standard and the modification of fixed ladders to have either a personal fall arrest system or a ladder safety device incorporated into it. It's a pretty that's a pretty big nut to crack when you consider all of the ladders that are out there and just in Maine where we are, there's a ton. It's not just your it's not just a lot of your older manufacturing facilities or the mills. You can start looking at recreation, and there's a lot of every tower on a ski lift has a fixed ladder. David Kozlowsky: [00:07:45] Has a fixed ladder yeah. Peter Koch: [00:07:46] And at some point the ones that are 24 feet or higher are going to have to be modified. David Kozlowsky: [00:07:52] And we have a cable system already, so we do have our own. I've been slow with the rigid rail portion of it, and there are times when a rigid [00:08:00] rail for various reasons I won't get into today is kind of the only option available, but there are certain features that I want it to be able to do, and I also need to make sure I don't obviously violate anybody's patents. So I've been working on trying to come up with my own idea for how I'd like that to work. Peter Koch: [00:08:19] So yeah, that's cool. And like you alluded to, you know, there's only so many ways to skin that particular cat. So yeah, and there are new ways out there. I mean, you know, folks like yourself and other engineers that are really thinking about this, there's different ways to do it. But you know, collectively, the solutions that have been out there, whether it's a T track rigid or it's a cable system, they've been out there for quite a while there might be some new ways to make that work a little bit better. David Kozlowsky: [00:08:47] Yeah, I've used a lot of them. I've seen a lot of them and I have a couple of ideas on how I think they should be able to operate, and that's what we're working towards. Peter Koch: [00:08:57] Good deal. Yeah. All right. Let's round back [00:09:00] to the topic for today, which is leading edge fall protection. And so in our last podcast that it kind of came up as a discussion or a brief discussion outside of the recording. And you know, I think leading edge work happens more frequently than people know, and I'm not sure that they understand all the risks involved with it. So I think we'll take time to discuss that. So let's start with the definition of leading edge. What is leading edge work? And then let's talk a little bit more about maybe the differences between how OSHA sees it and how ANSI sees it. David Kozlowsky: [00:09:33] So this is interesting. When we were talking about the topics, you know, you presented it this morning that you were going to ask me about the definition. I go ah man like, I don't really know what the definition is. I should be ready for this question. So I'm going to quit and I'm going to research it. And you know what? The weird thing is I went all through ANSI, and I can't find where ANSI actually gives a definition of leading edge. They talk about everything else. The SRL standard [00:10:00] three fifty nine point fourteen that's out there. They have they don't have any definitions, they refer you back to Z three fifty nine point zero, which is the base standard, and you go through all those definitions in there and they really don't ever give you one. And so you're kind of left to kind of infer on your own what the definition of a leading edge is. So I am going to give you my own definition. This is my opinion. And here it goes. So based on the way they have the testing done and the way the differences in the testing for the two different types of SRLs, actually there's three or four, but the two basically the ones that are made to attach above the D ring and then ones that are made to attach below the D ring. My definition of a leading edge is a two fold test, one you're attaching below your D ring and two the material of the lanyard leg itself of the self retracting lifeline [00:11:00] to any degree bends around another object. So there are many cases where just tying off at your feet does not necessarily introduce a leading edge. So my personal definition is you're tying off at or below the D ring and the leg of the SRL or lanyard is going to bend around another object, whether it just be a little bit or 90 degrees or whatever it ends up being, it's bending around another object. Peter Koch: [00:11:31] I think that's a good definition because it takes into consideration more than just working at an unprotected edge. Like I'm laying down metal decking or I'm doing work on a rooftop someplace, and I'm right next to that particular edge. Or I have to work with part of my body over the edge because you could set that up where depending on the location of your anchor, where even though I [00:12:00] am working on that leading edge, I might not need something that's specific to leading edge. David Kozlowsky: [00:12:05] So I'm going to add one further test, which I know I said two, but I'm going to make it three now. So in order to be true and again, this is my opinion. But in order to make it true, leading edge what you just mentioned, so the radius of test required and we can get into this in a little bit, but there's a very specific piece of material in a very specific radius in the ANSI test that you need to test a leading edge retractable. And it's what we call in the industry the sharp edge test. So to me, a leading edge should also include a sharp edge. There's many instances where you might meet two of the tests you might be tying off at or below the D ring. It might be bending around something, but that object presents zero risk of actually sawing or cutting the material, which is where the leading edge sharp edge test comes from. So it would need to meet those three tests. [00:13:00] Peter Koch: [00:13:01] So if I think about this in the real world and we're going to take this into industry, right? And I'm the supervisor or the safety manager and I'm doing my job hazard analysis or my risk assessment for that particular day. And I'm trying to choose what type of fall protection I'm going to have. I need to look at where the work is being done, how close to that edge I'm going to be, where my anchor is going to be and not just distance from the edge, but actually location based on the position of the individuals d-ring. That's a really good point that you brought up. What's the material or what is the edge actually look like? David Kozlowsky: [00:13:39] So the test that I came up with, which was any time it's bending around something or over something, this z three fifty nine point one three, which is the lanyard and shock absorbing lanyard standard for ANSI, has already in it. Testing and information for foot level tie off what they call 12 foot free fall [00:14:00] lanyards. And so the idea behind that is four foot level tie off. Well, someone might say, how is it that you can have foot level, but not a leading edge? Well, if you're connecting steel and you have an I-beam and you're connected to it, it's possible that it might be leading edge depending on how big the I-beam is and where the D ring is. But it's common practice when you're tying off with a lanyard to include a D ring extender, so to speak. So what you would want to do is add a D ring extender to the D ring so that no portion of the hardware or webbing on your lanyard would be bent over the IV when you fall, so it would be at the edge. So that would be an example of a 12 foot freefall or a foot level tie off. That's not necessarily a leading edge. And then other tests, you know, the sharp edge there's you know, we worked with a contractor a number of years ago that was working on windmills and you know, the [00:15:00] tops of those are round. They're like. The cells on an airplane engine, so there's really no risk of cutting any of the material. So we kind of got into a discussion with the general contractor about is this really a leading edge? Can you really need that type of equipment or is foot level sufficient, you know, to satisfy the need Peter Koch: [00:15:20] Yeah, so let's qualify that for a little bit, too. So our listeners understand the difference. There are certifications for leading edge fall protection equipment that would meet the tests or at the very least, you know, work for foot level connection and then be robust enough to not be damaged or and continue to work when it's bent over a particular radius and material. David Kozlowsky: [00:15:46] Right. So the lanyard standard 359.13 only has the 12 foot free fall. The test is virtually the same. It's the same two hundred and eighty two pound weight. It really just depends on how [00:16:00] far you allow the weight to fall and then measure the forces. So there's definitely not a sharp edge component to the foot level tie off for regular lanyards. Z359.14 is really the first one to differentiate and introduce a different test for that. So for the performance testing, for dynamic testing, the weights, two hundred and eighty two pounds the same, it's 300 for strength testing, but for performance testing is two hundred and eighty two pounds. And so now what they've done is they've classified self retracting lifelines into what's called Class A and B, which are for overhead tie off. That's anything above your D ring. And then they've created a test for SRL-LE, which is their designation for leading edge the same weight, but you are introducing a five foot free fall now instead of just hanging it from an overhead [00:17:00] point. So you need to introduce a five foot free fall. The distance back from the edge needs to MEMIC the length of the unit you're testing because they want you to test it to a certain percentage of its overall use. And then you drop it over the edge 20 inches away, and then you do a second test at a five foot offset to introduce a sawing effect. So it's the first standard to really kind of give you an actual specific test specifically for that, which is partly the way I came up with my test or my definition of what leading edge is. You know, the idea that it's going to bend over something and be a sharp edge and be a five foot free fall? Peter Koch: [00:17:42] Yeah, right. So if I understand that correctly, going back to the classifications of SRLs, you've got A, B and now you have LE David Kozlowsky: [00:17:53] LE and you have R2, which is four rescue devices that have built in winches. But that's a completely [00:18:00] different thing for what we're talking about. But yes, A B and LE and A and B are overhead, and those basically determine the total fall distance allowed and the average arrest force that's allowed OSHA in ANSI don't ever allow any more than 800 pounds max arrest force, but the average arrest for us class A is twenty four inches total arrest and thirteen hundred and fifty pounds average, and then Class B would be up to fifty four inches and only 900 pounds average arrest force. And then you go to LE and LE has to have the same thirteen hundred and fifty and fifty four inch max. And then it also now again, but it also has to pass the sharp edge test. Peter Koch: [00:18:43] Yeah, stay intact once it connects with the edge. David Kozlowsky: [00:18:46] I forget what the number is, but it does also have to maintain, regular ones is a thousand pounds. I think static after the fall, but I think it's a little less. I can't remember the exact number. It might be like six hundred and fifty pounds or something, but it does [00:19:00] have to pass also a static test after it's arrested the fall. Peter Koch: [00:19:05] It's got to sit there and be able to stand six hundred pounds. David Kozlowsky: [00:19:09] Yeah. You want to be able to have somebody hanging on it for a while and, you know, not risk that it's going to tear the rest of the way through? Peter Koch: [00:19:16] Yeah. Which is a it's a pretty good test. I would want to have that test there if I'm wearing it for sure. David Kozlowsky: [00:19:20] Yeah, sure. Me too, for sure. Peter Koch: [00:19:21] We've talked about it in the testing, but let's talk about that leading edge and like specifically, what are the additional hazards that are there? You talked about what it needs to withstand, but when I'm looking at the when I'm looking at the edge and I'm trying to determine what type of SRL or what type of lanyard you're going to use, what are the hazards, what are the dangers there for leading edge? David Kozlowsky: [00:19:45] Well, there's multiple dangers in some of these MEMIC foot level tie off and then some of them are new ones that are introduced with leading edge. But when you're doing fall calculations, I mean, the first thing you need to take into consideration is the [00:20:00] additional five foot free fall most. People don't realize that if you're tied back from the leading edge, even if you're tied off at your d-ring height, so even if you're technically tied off at or above your d-ring, but let's say it's four feet back from the edge of a roof, you don't realize it, but the retractable is probably not going to start arresting the fall until your d-ring is passed past the leading edge. So you're going to fall off the side when you're d-ring passes. That's when the rate of extension is going to increase enough to actually arrest the fall. So that's why they tested it five feet. So you need to take into consideration that you need to add that five feet of fall clearance to virtually every chart that you have. So Leading Edge introduces that extra fall clearance. And in some cases, like I said, even if you're tied off at or above your d-ring, if it's a leading edge, you need to add that five feet you can't count it as [00:21:00] an overhead tie off. Peter Koch: [00:21:01] Right, that makes sense. If you're going to have a fixed anchor and you're going to be traveling horizontally on whatever surface you're going to be. How far are you traveling? So if I fall off the edge with a 25 foot, you know, I've got a 30 foot SRL or and I'm traveling 10 or 15 foot horizontally beyond the center of that anchor point. How far am I actually going to fall before it catches me. David Kozlowsky: [00:21:27] Even if you're even if you're dead perpendicular to the anchor, even if you take out the pendulum effect, if you're dead perpendicular to the anchor, if you imagine in your mind, you know the edge and your, you know, your line comes in even horizontally. The increase horizontal to the angle is so little that the rate of extension is probably not going to catch up and actually start locking until your D ring actually passes and it goes over the side, then [00:22:00] it becomes a line pull. So now the rate is the same of your falling and the extension, and that's when it's going to lock. It's not going to lock before. So that's why it's important even when you're at or above. Even if you're dead perpendicular, you need to add that five feet. So then the other thing, of course, you touched on was the pendulum. I mean, there's always the possibility of the swing fall. So you need to calculate that into your fall clearance chart, the extra payout because you're falling further. So you're going to get more energy absorber extension than if you're just falling overhead. And then the and this is the most important thing is the biggest hazard is the actual edge itself. So, you know, the sharp edge component that I told you, that's that kind of third test of leading edges. The test is a zero point zero five radius. They have a very specific radius because [00:23:00] they say that's what structural steel is. Peter Koch: [00:23:01] So put that put that into context that someone can wrap their head around if they don't know what point zero five is. David Kozlowsky: [00:23:08] Is five one thousandths of an inch. I mean, it's Peter Koch: [00:23:12] So that's like, like pencil lead. David Kozlowsky: [00:23:14] Yeah, right? Yeah. It's like, really, really. It's basically a sharp edge. I mean, so you know, not just the straight fall, but especially if you're not perfectly perpendicular, there's going to be a sawing effect. And that's the most dangerous part of leading edge. And why they do. The sharp edge test is if your five or 10 feet off of perpendicular and you fall, you know, from other studies of fall protection that you're going to run along the edge until you're lanyard, you're just perpendicular to your tie off point. And however far that is, is how far it's going to saw that webbing or the cable. And I've seen tests where even cable can get cut if the edge is sharp enough. Especially if it's, you know, steel. So [00:24:00] that's really the most dangerous thing is, you know, that sawing effect that you might have. So you want to take that into consideration in each application and in the material that you're using, whether you're using a cable lanyard, a web lanyard, you know, as a shock absorber or not. Peter Koch: [00:24:15] Sure. And it makes sense. You know, you think about the maximum amount of force that OSHA allows or ANSI allows is 1800 pounds. You can't put 1800 pounds of force between your hands pulling a piece of rope. But if you pull a piece of rope tight between your hands and touch a sharp knife to it, it's going to part. David Kozlowsky: [00:24:35] It's going to part. Peter Koch: [00:24:36] So put 1800 pounds on that and then roll that over a sharp edge. There's going to be some damage if it's not designed for it. David Kozlowsky: [00:24:43] Right. Exactly. So that's why I introduce that, because not every edge is sharp enough to do that. I mean, certainly steel is if you're doing roofing, you know, you might have metal decking or metal roofing. I mean, certainly that can be a knife edge sometimes. [00:25:00] So certainly that would be a sharp edge. Concrete can be a sharp edge, especially if it's a Web lanyard, maybe not so much for cable, but certainly possible, you know, if it's a soft edge. If you're talking, you know, like we talked about the wind towers or, you know, if you're doing wood construction and you get two by dimensional lumber, I don't know if I would say that there would be a risk of cutting, you know, especially a cable lanyard. So maybe just foot level would be sufficient for that. Again, this is my opinion. Somebody else might disagree with me, but that's my opinion. That's the way I look at it. Peter Koch: [00:25:34] And it makes sense. It's logical to think that, but I think the key point to take away as you're listening to this is you've got to do your own. I won't say research, but you have to evaluate the fall hazard that you have. So it's not just the distance between the anchor and the ground anymore. There's more information that you need to gain about the situation before you can make a choice on material and [00:26:00] the type of fall protection system that you're going to have. David Kozlowsky: [00:26:02] So, you know, that's part of the job of the safety manager of whoever is for whatever construction company or whatever company that you work for. And I think especially nowadays, it seems like safety managers probably spend all their time dealing with COVID and stuff and less time with fall protection. But, you know, I liken it to a lot of us here have taken the rigging and signal test for cranes because we do contracting work and we need to be qualified by and CEO to rig or signal a crane. So we've all taken the classes in, you know, the studies that you do for the rigging part of it, it's pretty in depth. There's a lot of calculations. If you're not going to preplan it, it's difficult if you're going to just show up on site and say, All right, what do I need? And you can start to calculate sling angles and how much does this way and how long are the straps and, you know, stuff like that. So it gets pretty complex. And, you know, I don't think a lot [00:27:00] of safety people sometimes realize that that's your job, really. If you're not, you know, you might not be rigging a pallet, but your job is the safety manager is to analyze the risk. And you know, the guys that are on the field don't have the time to stop and spend two hours figuring out what they need. Your job is to kind of, you know, survey the area and kind of look ahead of time and see and make all those calculations. You're the one who wants to do all the fall clearance. You want to analyze the risk. You want to look at the edge, see if it's sharp. It's really your job to go in and perform all those fall clearance calculations and everything that you need to do, tell the people on site this is what you need to do to operate it safely. And so that's an important task. Peter Koch: [00:27:48] It's a really important task. And I think especially in some smaller companies that might not have a dedicated risk manager or a safety coordinator on site with them all the time. You [00:28:00] might be foreman or a supervisor that has those safety responsibilities. So your company is going to purchase fall protection equipment and you're going to have it at the shop, you're going to have it in the truck, whatever that is. And then you're going to get to the area and you're going to try to apply whatever you have to, whatever that scenario is. And since, well, especially since talking to you, but in my experience, having done a lot of fall protection training and work at height, not every fall protection solution is functional for the scenario that you're going to come and come encounter with. So just like you said, if you do it ahead of time, you can send the team with the right tool. If you don't send them what the right tool they're going to use, whatever tool that you have. David Kozlowsky: [00:28:51] So a job hazard analysis, we all hate them. I've filled out a million of them. It's a lot of work sometimes, especially for a small contractor like [00:29:00] us. We also don't have a dedicated safety person, that's all they do all day long. So it's extra work for me or for the foreman. But you know, it's something that you complain about, but it's definitely needed. It's definitely that you catch a lot of things that you might not have considered if you take the time to do it ahead of time. And this is one of those things the fall clearance, the edge, the proper equipment and what you need definitely take the time to analyze each situation ahead of time. Peter Koch: [00:29:31] Yeah, it's a great idea, and you can fairly easily I won't call it easy, but you can set yourself up for success by having the questions asked when you're setting up the job, when you are bidding the job. So as you start to bid the job and you know you're going to be working at height, you're building a roof, you're building deck and you're doing whatever that is. Consider the plans. Where are you going to be? Where is your anchor point going to be? What's the material that [00:30:00] you have the potential to fall off of? Yeah. If I can't put a guardrail in, then I need to start looking at these different scenarios. So, you know, if you get to that part in the flow chart where it says, yes, I'm leading edge, it changes the fall protection equipment that you have to bring with you. David Kozlowsky: [00:30:16] And that happens all the time, Peter. That's not a that's not as rare of a scenario as you would think is, you know, XYZ contractor is calling saying, Oh man, I need all this stuff for this. Like, I didn't put this in the job. I didn't know I needed it. And you know, the safety officer for the general contractor is going around saying, No, you can't do this until you have the right equipment. And so that it does happen a lot. Peter Koch: [00:30:40] Yeah, yeah. Totally changes that. You know, we've talked about the relationship between safety, quality and productivity. And even there, like if I can plan for safety ahead of time, it totally changes my productivity because the scenario that you just described where the GC safety guy is saying, I'm sorry, Pete's [00:31:00] contractor, you can't do this unless you have this in place. And now he's got another bill that he's got to come up with, and it's time for you to. I mean, it might even be a custom solution, and that's not something that you can say, Oh yeah, I'll have it shipped to you tomorrow. That's not going to function. David Kozlowsky: [00:31:15] No, and it's certainly going to take a chunk out of, you know, whatever they budgeted for, you know, materials and expenses for the job. Peter Koch: [00:31:22] Profits get a little bit tight that way. David Kozlowsky: [00:31:25] Yeah, if you're going to be working at height, I think if you're a contractor that does any kind of work at height, I mean, you should be spending the time to analyze the job ahead of time before you do something like that to make sure you either have what you need or you factor in some budget money to, you know, to obtain what you need. Peter Koch: [00:31:46] Yeah to see it. You know, you might not know it happens. You might be planning for a job that was described to you X and you get on the job. And all of a sudden it's Z and you have to be agile in your adaptation to whatever's there. [00:32:00] But having worked with hundreds of different teams on the ground where you know their supervisor or manager or the safety guy is not there and we're talking to them about fall protection, and so what about this particular hazard or why are you using this solution in this scenario? And the answer is more times than not is it's all we have, right? Like, I've got a harness and I've got a six foot lanyard, and they might even they might not even have a large enough hook on the end of it to tie in to whatever anchor they're supposed to. So they're tying back to the lanyard and they're changing the dynamics of that particular fall protection solution. David Kozlowsky: [00:32:40] Yeah. And that's one of the things that I can say about the culture of fall protection that is definitely changed in the last, you know, 10 or 15 years is that if you're going to do work for any larger contractor, you're going to have your ducks in a row or you're not going to be able to work on site. So I could see that happening in [00:33:00] smaller jobs where, you know, you might be the general contractor and you're just there doing a little job for a customer. But if you're on any, any larger site, that's not going to happen. And it's, you know, in some ways, it's actually it's actually a help. I mean, if you don't have a safety person on site and as much as you might want to not like the, you know, intrusion or the extra cost, you basically just got, you know, free help from, you know, probably a pretty good safety person, you know, telling you what you need. Peter Koch: [00:33:32] They're great. They are truly a great resource. David Kozlowsky: [00:33:34] A good one is a great resource. A good one is, yeah, definitely qualifier. Peter Koch: [00:33:39] Good one is a good resource, right? Absolutely. And you know, so let's take this out of the construction environment for a moment, because they're not the only industry that has fall protection requirements, even though the threshold is different. We talked about this in previous podcasts. Six foot four construction as the general threshold and then four foot four general industry. Yeah, you [00:34:00] get to some maintenance guys that are not doing construction, they're doing maintenance work and they might not be able to have guardrails in a particular situation, but they might actually have a leading edge scenario where a fall could put them at risk of damaging or severing that lifeline. David Kozlowsky: [00:34:18] I have run into this quite a few times, and the unfortunate thing with general industry with the four foot rule is that a lot of people want to quickly go to the fall protection because it's less expensive than guardrails. The problem is, it is virtually impossible to arrest a fall on a four foot height at a leading edge. As I told you, it's five feet to the d-ring to begin with, so you're 100 percent going to hit the floor before the retractable even starts locking up and arresting the fall. It's just impossible. So in those situations, it's a scenario that just kind of can't exist. You'd sometimes just have to tell people, Listen, you [00:35:00] need to be further up the hierarchy. You need to prevent the fall rather than try to arrest it in this particular situation. And even that's somewhat true, even for overhead. I mean, even if you have the perfect scenario of an overhead retractable perfectly over where you're working, you have all the right equipment and it's only four feet to the next level. Arresting a person before you contact the floor is going to be extremely difficult. So you definitely see less leading edge issues in industry. But it's not unheard of because we've run into many applications where you have like an open sided mezzanine. You're loading material to a, you know, a second floor mezzanine and someone has to remove the guardrail in order to get material up there. We run into that all the time. That's a classic situation for a potential leading edge and especially a sharp edge. Peter Koch: [00:35:52] Yeah, truly, truly about that. That's a great scenario. I think about maintenance guys in the hotel industry that are, you know, [00:36:00] going to different areas and having to do some repairs that are going to be exposed to those fall hazards. There's plenty of different scenarios that your traditional, you know, fall protection in a bucket. It's not going to be what you want to send your guy with, right? And so that preplanning is huge. So if you are going to calculate the fall distance and you've explained this somewhat. But if we're going to look at this from a leading edge perspective with a SRL and I needed it to deal with the fall clearance, let's see. I've got maybe it's 10 feet from the work platform to the ground and I've got my anchor set right at D-ring height. So let's call it five feet off the deck. So thinking that through. How would I calculate whether or not I am using the right tool for that scenario? David Kozlowsky: [00:36:54] Well, the general accepted industry standard is you want to maintain [00:37:00] try to maintain a two foot safety factor, if you can. So you need to try to arrest that fall basically, if it's 10 feet within eight feet and that starts getting really challenging because depending on where you are, you might need to start doing some trigonometry to figure out the length of the hypotenuse and how much if you fall, if you're 10 feet off center, once you hit the edge, how much webbing is over the edge and what's the difference in the hypotenuse between the offset center and the perpendicular center? So even when it locks up how much additional webbing, how much travel from the retractable? Is it going to be twenty four inches? Is it going to be fifty four inches? You know, you need to take and those are things that you can, you know, you can use the manufacturer's information to help you calculate. I can't do it off the top of my head. If you ask me to do one, I can't. It's too complicated. Yeah, on my laptop, I created a calculator. [00:38:00] If you give me a minute to get it out, I could probably do one for you. But there's too many. There's too many trigonometric calculations to actually figuring out. And I've also custom tailored my fall calculator to take into consideration actual fall distances from our SRLs, rather than just the published maximums. So like a class, a retractable can extend up to fifty four inches, but they very rarely do all the way. Fifty four would be a worst case scenario a full five foot free fall, a full three hundred pound, three hundred and ten pound worker. All of these things. And if you're only one hundred and eighty pounds and you don't fall quite the full five feet, then you know the number would be less the payout. Right. So besides all the trigonometric functions, I have an actual calculator that calculates the estimated actual payout, so it's way too much to just do right off the [00:39:00] top of my head. Peter Koch: [00:39:01] No I think it's a great answer because normally people, I got that this, this and that and boom, it's all set. Yeah, that's not always the answer. David Kozlowsky: [00:39:08] Well, if you want to take if you want to be safe and you want to take the standard things you can like, if you're standing on the edge of something and you're tied off overhead, then you know you can take the from foot level. You can take the, you know, the total arrest distance plus the total payout, plus the flex in the, you know, the D ring and the harness and all that. You can add all those up and just come up with a general number. The problem is if you don't have 18 to 20 feet of fall clearance and it's getting a little tighter, then you need to start getting a little bit more in depth in your calculations to make sure you, you know you cover it. Peter Koch: [00:39:44] No, I think that's a great point, too, because most people will take those standards and say, this is going to work normally. I don't know. I don't see very many times where the worker, the guy who's actually got to use the fall protection [00:40:00] stuff that he's given by the company. He works at those particular standards like so great when we set it up. You might have had 15 feet of fall clearance, but now because of stuff that's parked below the edge, now we don't have 15 feet of fall clearance. We've got eight feet of fall clearance or 10 feet of fall clearance. And all of a sudden it changes whether or not that piece of equipment is going to work. And great, I've got one anchor point, but I've got, you know, 15, 16, 18 feet to either side of the anchor for the guy to do his job. And that changes. What he can do. David Kozlowsky: [00:40:36] And this goes back to what I said at the beginning about when you're calculating those, it's important to add five feet to pretty much anything you calculate with leading edge. If you're tied off behind you because you're going to fall that five feet to the D ring before the system even starts doing what it's supposed to be doing. So that's why I went back to, you know, if it's four foot if it's, you know, general industry [00:41:00] and you have to add five feet to every fall to begin with, Peter Koch: [00:41:02] That math doesn't work, David Kozlowsky: [00:41:03] Doesn't add up, does it? Peter Koch: [00:41:04] You don't even need your laptop for that. David Kozlowsky: [00:41:06] No I don't. That's right. Peter Koch: [00:41:09] So let's talk a little bit more about the kind of the setup because we discussed this and this was sort of a revelation to me. I hadn't thought of it this way, but just because your anchor might actually be at your D ring height or above doesn't mean it's not leading edge because there's a relationship between where the edge is and the distance back from the edge for the anchor. Because you're going to, you might have a sharp enough radius across that sharp edge, depending on how far back it is. Talk a little bit about that and how that might factor in this might be a surprise to people. David Kozlowsky: [00:41:46] So basically, what you're looking at is depending on the well, going back to what I said originally about how if it's in my opinion, if it's bending over something and it's a sharp edge and you're tied back from the edge, so it's bending [00:42:00] over something, then you're basically technically a leading edge. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be the maximum freefall. Certainly, the maximum calculated freefall would be, say, a roof anchor at your feet. Back from the edge, you're going to fall the full five feet. If you're tied off, you know, above your head back from the edge, you might not fall the full five feet you might actually get. And this is the relationship to everything centrifugal bass. So an SRL locks up based on pulls and springs. It's all engineered so that a certain number of feet per minute that the cable comes out. It's going to lock those things. So if it's not traveling fast enough, then it's not going to lock. This kind of even goes back to our last discussion. We were talking about low sloped roofs, and I said there's some discussion about I kind of put myself out there by saying you could use a retractable on a low sloped roof, but some people say you can't because what happens is if you're sliding down the roof, you're technically [00:43:00] in a free fall technically, but you're sliding slow, right? You're not really free falling, so to speak, so you could slide all the way down the roof and your retractable might never lock up. So the same concept applies to this. If you're tied off, say above your D ring behind you a little bit and the ultimate angle that's going to come over that edge. If it's not very much, it's going to pay out quicker. So it's going to lock up quicker than, if you're, say, tied off at your feet. But again, that's a calculation for the for the laptop. I would say if you're at a leading edge to be safe, if you just use the five feet to begin with, then you're going to be safe. I mean, that would be something you might want to save for a very specific application where you're really trying to get some work done and you know, it's a tight fall clearance. Peter Koch: [00:43:53] Sure and even like the choice between getting something that might be leading edge certified as opposed to something that's more general [00:44:00] certified for a SRL, just because I'm tied off at my d-ring or above and back, you know, the further back you are as I for the anchor point, if I've got, you know, 10 or 15 feet of distance between my anchor and the leading edge, that's going to be a fairly sharp radius. As you think about. I've got five feet of height, 15 feet below. There's your hypotenuse calculation that you come in from there all the way to the leading edge. It's going to be a fairly sharp radius as you come across. Rather than if you had your anchor almost directly above that leading edge where you're not going to have much there. David Kozlowsky: [00:44:36] You're not going to have that. In fact, you can even get further into this if you want to. Some people that like to have brainy discussions about this stuff would even say that retractable can only, the springs will only retract the cable at a certain number of feet per second to depending on the retractable. So some people would also say that if you're tied off like on a roof anchor and your way far below the D ring, [00:45:00] that. There's a possibility that you would even have more than five feet because if you accidentally it's different if you roll off the edge or if you step off the edge. So if you literally just take a step off the edge and you're instantly free falling, there's a possibility that you could fall faster than the retractable can pull the cable back in. So you're going to actually have loose cable at the edge. So you're not only going to go the five feet, but you might go an extra foot. You know the loose cable? Peter Koch: [00:45:29] Yeah. So that really goes into that industry standard of that two foot safety factors critical in that consideration, David Kozlowsky: [00:45:38] And that's why you do it. Yeah, definitely. Because they're I mean, it's definitely a science and it's reasonably exact science. But and there's just so many variables. It's hard. I mean, even the friction of the edge can change it. How you know how easy it is for it to slip over the side. Obviously, the weight of the person can change it. The type of fall can change it. If you're backing up and [00:46:00] literally step off the edge of a roof or something, that's going to be a totally different dynamic than if you're kneeling down and, you know, working, or if you slip and fall down and kind of roll off the side. Or, you know, if you bump into somebody and you both fall off the side, I mean, that can affect things. So that's yeah, that's why the safety factor, there's just too many variables, Peter Koch: [00:46:22] Tons of variables. I always tell people when we get to do those fall calculations and just the basic math, not the laptop math. David Kozlowsky: [00:46:30] Can't go wrong with that. Peter Koch: [00:46:31] Yeah, just to kind of look at that and look at the standards and you get to that end where you put the safety factor in and they all look at me and go, Why would I want to do that? It's like because your math isn't as good as you think it is. And your eye is not as good as you're estimating, you think or in estimating as you think it is, so have the safety factor in the event that you make a mistake. But here, when we consider that you might not have made a mistake at all in the calculation, the mistake happens in the relation or not the relationship, but the design of [00:47:00] the equipment and the use of the equipment. David Kozlowsky: [00:47:02] Well, even just the equipment itself. I mean, you know, a retractable and we have pretty exacting standards of, you know, the torque on the brake nut when we reassemble one or when we repair one. But you know, there's a range that you're allowed to be in. So if you're on the tighter end or the looser end of that range, I mean, that could make a few inches. It doesn't sound like much, but a few inches could turn into more than that, depending on how far the fall was and stuff. So, you know, there's all these little things that you just can't take into consideration. So the safety factor is there to cover that. Peter Koch: [00:47:37] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so that's a good point. You manufacture SRLs and you manufacture lanyards and things like that. So what besides or in order to get the LE certification, what's the material difference is like what? I know it can't break, but what kind of material goes into making SRL? That's LE certified. David Kozlowsky: [00:47:59] Well the cable ones [00:48:00] are really no different as far as the actual guts of the unit. Based on the older overhead style, it's the same size cable, basically same drum, same springs, same pulls because a lot of the tests are still the same. The static tests and a lot of those retraction tests and everything are all the same, whether it's overhead or it's LE. So the difference mainly being there's going to be a slight adjustment on the brake tension. So there's going to be a little bit of an adjustment. So an overhead one and an LE one is going to have a slight adjustment in that the nut that actually adjust the brake tension and then you're going to also have on any newer retractable as you're going to have a shock pack on that. So the newer the 2014 standard removed, the old standard used to say that if you could pass the leading edge test without an external shock pack, then you could do it that way. [00:49:00] The new standard basically took that exemption out, so it basically says a leading edge retractable must have a shock pack unless it's designed to be worn on the body, so the movable braking portion of it is on you instead of at the connection point. So most larger, retractable is anything bigger than, you know, like a little six foot job is going to. They're going to have an additional shock pack because the braking mechanism is still in the unit. So there's that difference. And then, like I said, the shock, that's basically the main two differences. Peter Koch: [00:49:33] Ok, and then can you have fabric? That would that would get certified? David Kozlowsky: [00:49:38] If you can get it to pass the test, you can. Our weight our six foot unit is the mini six foot mini is. We tried to get that to pass leading edge. It's got dynamo webbing, which is very strong and very abrasion resistant, couldn't quite get it. It's really hard that sawing test [00:50:00] is the hardest one, so we passed foot level tie off with that no problem. We actually passed the straight line leading edge, sharp edge test with it. No problem. But as soon as you introduce the five foot offset and have that sawing motion, it does. It cuts the webbing and it doesn't it won't hold up. So getting a fabric one to withstand the leading edge test in a bigger unit, you probably could do it because the webbing is much thicker and much stronger. But those little six foot jobs, they're only like three quarter inch wide webbing and it's real thin. So you're trying to put it in a compact housing. So there's just not room for a beefy enough material. But so most, most everything leading edge is cable. Yeah, I mean, if you could get it to pass, you could. There's no reason why you couldn't. Peter Koch: [00:50:52] Yeah, that makes sense. Again, you're balancing that safety, quality productivity like I can. I can make it if I can get a big enough, beefy [00:51:00] enough, sturdy enough piece of webbing. But then I'm not going to want to wear that on my back all the time. Or, you know, have it attached someplace else too. David Kozlowsky: [00:51:09] Then users are saying, Well, everybody else is only this big and you know, yours weighs this much and it's, you know, then like you said, productivity, right? Peter Koch: [00:51:18] It just goes back to the plan, right? In order to have the right fall protection equipment, that's not going to break the budget, that's going to be applicable. You have to have a plan, you have to know what the exposures are. And I, you know, we talk about that almost every time we have a conversation about fall prevention and fall protection, but it's the crucial part of any process of thinking about fall protection. You got to know what you're protecting from. David Kozlowsky: [00:51:47] It's a crucial part of any process. I mean, how productive. Let's take fall protection out of it. Let's say you're working on a piece of machinery. How productive is it to repair that piece of machinery if you just [00:52:00] show up and then it's 14 trips back to the toolbox and four trips to the parts store to, you know, get parts and, you know, a 10 minute job might take you all day. I mean, it's no different than safety. It's just you need to start applying that same principle where any job, whether it's safety or maintenance or anything, is far more productive and efficient if you figure out what you need ahead of time and hopefully have it on hand. Peter Koch: [00:52:26] Yeah, we I think we get spoiled sometimes in our sort of instant gratification society when we think, Oh yeah, I can just get that it's not a big deal, but like talk to the guys that maintain the wind turbines and you're 600 feet in the air and you drop a wrench or you don't bring the right size socket with you. It's a half a day project sometimes to get all the way back down and get all the way back up. David Kozlowsky: [00:52:50] If you're at the, you know you're on the roof of a, you know, an older building, maybe it doesn't have an elevator and you're going up there to service HVAC equipment and you and [00:53:00] I forgot the belt, you know, and it's 12 stories back down to the van twelve stories back up. I mean, might take you 45 minutes because you forgot that belt. You know, it's those kind of things can be applied to safety, too. If you try to plan ahead and you have the equipment hopefully on hand that you need, then you're going to be way more productive, just like any other task. Peter Koch: [00:53:20] Yeah. And I think a good point, too, like if you don't have that dedicated safety person for your company, which fine, then use the people that are on the right on the front line and start getting information from them about how it works, how it applies. Does this tool that we have actually function for you, some of it, they're not going to know, like a lot of the qualifications and certifications and the risk assessment part they might not understand, but David Kozlowsky: [00:53:48] That's where people can help. We can help them, though that's the kind of thing that, you know, if you're going into an industrial or commercial application like you're talking about, I mean, you might your safety [00:54:00] person might be an industrial hygienist or something. Or maybe they're really good at some things, but all of a sudden they've thrown at them a fall situation and they're not sure. I mean, that's where we come in. I mean, if they don't know, they have us to call and we're the experts. Peter Koch: [00:54:16] Yeah, that's a great point. Google can get you quite far, but really getting to the expert person is going to take you a lot farther, a lot faster. And people always think, Oh, it's going to just cost so much money. I have to incorporate this expert person to come in and do that in the long run. You were talking about that before. You might be able to give information that will allow someone to get a smaller, more efficient unit for their team rather than having to go with a big gummy one. Because you're you only have information that's going to be the max standard for evaluation. David Kozlowsky: [00:54:55] We're always cognizant of that and we always go in and try to lead [00:55:00] off with. Whatever we feel would be the most economically feasible for the customer, and we never go in and try to oversell them something. I mean, sometimes that's the only thing you can use and that's just the way it is. But there's many times where we have been in and we've come out and the customer said, Wow, I thought that was going to, you know, cost me a lot more. Thanks for walking us through this. Peter Koch: [00:55:21] Cool. That's really cool. And you know, I'll, you know, I'll look at that as well and think, Geez, like there's been times where just with my own expertise, I don't have all the information that I can. I can correctly or efficiently advise a policyholder. So even myself, as an expert within the safety industry, you have to look to somebody who has a lot more experience within fall protection because I don't have the fall calculator that you've developed through years of experience and then testing your own equipment to get certifications through ANSI to make sure that it meets [00:56:00] the standard that's functional. David Kozlowsky: [00:56:02] Yeah. And even with that, I've said before, I mean, way back to the first one, you ask me, you know, what's one thing you wish you could tell younger you? It's like, it's OK to not know everything. I still don't. I'll say it again. I mean, when you when you gave me the list of topics, I had to go on and look up definitions because I'm like, Oh man, I never thought of that. It's just one of those things where if you know where to find things, or if you know people that can help you, that you can, you know, along in the process, then that's everything really. You don't have to know everything I don't Peter Koch: [00:56:32] No, and you can't. There's so much information out there and it's a blessing and a trap, right? Because there's so much information out there. It also means that there's a lot of misinformation out there. And as I was doing some research and investigation for this particular episode, you can Google leading edge fall protection and there's a zillion Google hits that come up for that. So which one do you choose? David Kozlowsky: [00:56:57] Well, there's no substitute [00:57:00] for actually on site, like, that's why I said, if you're on site, you can google it all you want. You can see all the lanyards there are and all the SRLs, and you can see all that equipment. But you know somebody on a Google search probably not going to be able to look at your particular situation and say, I would recommend that you use this. And that's where you just you just can't substitute like somebody in person, you know, actually helping you and looking at it. Peter Koch: [00:57:27] Yeah, that's a great that's a great example. I just made me think, if you know, if I am a contractor or I've got a new job that I'm trying to bid out and I need new fall protection equipment for it, you know, many times you're just going to go to the website. And all right, so this is what I've purchased before. I purchased this, before I purchased that before. And you might talk to the sales guy, maybe at the website and you're going to give them a little bit of information. He's going to tell you what he thinks. What we've talked about here is [00:58:00] you need more specifics. David Kozlowsky: [00:58:01] Yeah, a lot more specifics. We've I've not gotten a lot of sales because I wouldn't sell somebody something that I knew wasn't going to work. And then, you know, I don't want to drop names, but they'll go on their favorite, you know, catalog du jour with all of the industrial and safety gear in it. And they'll just buy what they want and then they'll call it good. And we won't do that. I mean, I'm not going to sell somebody something if it's not going to work. And leading edge is the perfect time to talk about that because leading edge is can be potentially far more dangerous than any other type of fall protection, both in terms of fall clearance and in terms of what happens during the fall. And when you have that false sense of security, you think you're safe because you're tied off and then God forbid, it breaks, you know, when you're hopefully you're safe and you're not. Peter Koch: [00:58:55] Yeah, there's some pretty dramatic videos out there around [00:59:00] leading edge equipment testing and the difference between something rated for leading edge, whether it's cable or fabric in just watching the instantaneous parting of that lanyard as it comes over the edge. And, you know, as the guy who is maybe wearing that equipment to think, alright, so this is going to protect me and that's, you know, as a manager, if you hand someone some PPE in the back of their head, they're thinking, OK, this is going to keep me safe. Well, if it's not the right thing and they do have a leading edge fall and it's not appropriate for leading edge, the thing in their mind of I'm going to be hanging here, parts when the cable parts David Kozlowsky: [00:59:42] Back early on in my days at safe approach back around the late nineties. We had a situation where a customer had a couple of our stations and a cable and a lanyard, and they were tied off doing what they were supposed to be doing work in a leading [01:00:00] edge, doing decking. And so the worker stepped off the edge and fell in the stanchions, and the cable and the lanyard did everything they were supposed to do. He got caught and everything worked. He was hanging sixty feet off the ground. And because there was the way he fell and because there was a slight slope because they were on the top level, one of the sheets of roofing continued to slide off the roof, went off the roof, sliced right through his lanyard, and he fell. And this is after the fall. So here's a guy who is here and he thinks he's saved because the product did its job and then a sheet comes off and slices through the lanyard, and that was before they really had leading edge or anything like that. And honestly, that was an accident that would have been hard to prevent. I mean, that wasn't a leading edge situation. It wasn't a, you know, a situation where [01:01:00] he was using the wrong equipment. It was just that one in a million chance. And so, you know, things happen less than one in a million chance. Things happen and you want to make sure you have the right gear. And leading edge is it's no joke. I mean, it can happen to you. Peter Koch: [01:01:16] Yeah, it very much can. And then going back to that, the conversation about job hazard analysis like a comprehensive job hazard analysis would take into consideration where is your material? How is it being secured? What's the pitch? What's the potential? And then all that information can be if you bring it to someone who's not just picking something out of a catalog can start to look and say, Well, hey, you know, if you're not going to secure this, if there's areas where you can't do this, you might want to have something else in the event that all these factors come together. In a worst case scenario. David Kozlowsky: [01:01:55] Yeah, exactly. It happens. Peter Koch: [01:01:56] Yeah, right on. Is there anything else that you want to tell us about for [01:02:00] Leading Edge that we haven't talked about is anything that I didn't ask you David Kozlowsky: [01:02:03] Off the top of my head. I can't think of anything. I think we covered it pretty well. Peter Koch: [01:02:07] We did pretty well. I think today. David Kozlowsky: [01:02:08] Don't want people to get bored either. Peter Koch: [01:02:10] No, no, no. And I guess one last plug that I have about reaching out to experts that there is a there's a definite benefit to recognizing that you don't always have all the information and then reaching out to an expert to engage them about a particular product or scenario or situation. And I can't stress that enough that Google is great, but it doesn't always give you all the information. And in all of the research that I did around leading edge the conversation around the five foot part, the additiona
Time to clip in and join us for another edition of The Event Safety Podcast! In this episode, Danielle and Steve examine the hazards of working at height with Rigging and Safety Manager Phil Van Hest. Topics of discussion include mobile elevated work platforms (MEWPS), applicable standards, rescue planning, training, inspections, and much more.This episode is brought to you by Bigger Hammer Production ServicesSHOW NOTES:ANSI/SAIA A92.22: Safe Use Of Mobile Elevating Work Platforms (MEWPs)Bigger Hammer Training CenterABOUT PHIL:Phil van Hest provides Rigging, Fall Protection and Heavy Equipment instruction in the LA area. Before entering the world of rigging safety, Phil toured the world as a comic/writer/performer, and thinks twice about mentioning it; rigging and safety are famously humorless subjects. Phil is the Safety and Rigging Manager for Bigger Hammer Production Services, and an ETCP Recognized Trainer holding certifications in Arena and Theatrical rigging. He currently resides in Orange County, another place in California named after a thing that used to be there before it got paved over.
According to BLS data, workplace fatalities from falls to a lower level were up from 615 on 2018 to 711 in 2019. Fall hazard exposures exist in almost every industry and finding the right fall protection solution for you' your situation is not always easy. There are many factors that should go into choosing the best fall prevention method, especially when it comes to fall protection on roofs. On this episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I speak with David Kozlowsky, President and Owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine about fall protection requirements for roofs. Peter Koch: [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I'm your host, Peter Koch. There are fall hazards in almost every industry or business, and personally, whether it's scaffolding, ladders, anchors, fall protection, arrest systems, rope access rescue or fall protection training and education, that all makes up a significant part of what I do with the businesses that I serve. And today we're going to talk about falls and specifically falls from a height and even more specifically, fall exposures while you're on a roof. So before we get into that recently, I got the chance to talk to one of my friends, who's another safety professional in a different area of the country. And we got to talking about fall protection and the excuses or reasons that workers and business owners have given us for why they don't or won't use fall protection on their job sites. So here are some of the ones that we've had in common, and I bet you you'll find some of [00:01:00] these are actually pretty familiar to you. If you're a safety professional and if you're a business owner, maybe you've used one of them yourself. I know before I got to be a safety professional, I've used a number of these to make an excuse of why I'm not or won't use fall protection. So the first one that came up, which was, I think, one of the more common ones, it's way too time consuming to set it all up. I can get the job done and half the time. If I can just get on the roof and do my roofing work, that's the first one, too time consuming. It gets in the way you talk to workers all the time that they're on the roof you have the rope gets in the way, the guardrails get in the way it just gets in the way. Another one is it makes me feel less safe. So the ropes are a tripping hazard. And honestly, I think maybe the pneumatic hoses are probably more of a tripping hazard than the lifelines, but it's all perception. So it makes me feel less safe. It limits what I can do. It's uncomfortable, and I totally get that. If you're in a harness all day long [00:02:00] on a roof, you've got enough discomfort up there from the environment and the pitch that you're on and everything else. So the harness can add a little discomfort to it. But again, it's an excuse, so it causes more of a hazard. Getting back to that makes me feel less safe. It doesn't add value to the job, so we quantify that one is it just costs too much. I can't bid successfully for a job against the guy down the road. He's not using fall protection. If I bid the job with fall protection, it's going to cost me way too much. I won't get the job. Another excuse that my friend and I have heard often is when I did buy it, my employees didn't use it, so I stopped buying it and asking them to use it. So they just kind of gave up instead of powering through and making it an initiative and part of the culture. But again, there's the excuse I'm only going to be up there for a minute. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that particular excuse, and more often I've [00:03:00] heard that excuse during an investigation or an analysis of why the fall occurred. So I'm going to a client and we're talking to them about why this person got significantly injured, falling off the roof, the ladder, the whatever it was. And the answer is, well, they were only going to be up there for a minute. I didn't think I needed to set up all of the fall protection. Another one, which is interesting because it's all about perception. Again, I've never used it before and I'm really comfortable working at height or being up on the roof. So my comfort level is driving the non need, I guess, for fall protection. Another interesting one is what we are using fall protection and I'm talking to the business owner and he's pointing up to the roof where his roofers are on roofing planks instead of actually a fall protection system. So that's not fall protection. We'll get into that as we talk through this in the podcast. And this last one probably was my most favorite. And it's more than just a statement. It's a couple [00:04:00] of statements. So bear with me here. So when I was asking this individual about fall protection on the job site, the answer was, Well, we have a safety monitor and that's all we need. Because for roofing, there is an accommodation there to use a safety monitor under very specific conditions. But his answer was we have a safety monitor. That's all we need. And he was saying this while he's pointing to one of the workers who was on the ground shoveling shingles from the ground of the dump trailer. But he was in an orange vest so that designated him as the safety monitor. But his buddies or the other workers were up actually stripping the roof on a 10 12 pitch. So the safety monitor was doing something else while the guys were up stripping the roof. And while I looked at him, the follow up to that was from the guy was, well, he's only there for a few minutes because he needs to stay ahead for the cleanup. And while the other guys are at the peak, he doesn't need to pay attention as much. He'll pay more attention when they get closer to [00:05:00] the edge. Like, OK, fine. Excellent. So all of those are different excuses, you'll hear them all over the place, but none of them really help you because there's a lot of stats out there that really drive the need for fall protection, and you can talk to anyone who has taken a fall off a roof or off a ladder, and I'll bet you that they wish that they had done something a little bit different, so they didn't have an event that changed their life. So if we look just at the stats, according to BLS data, fatal falls from roofs accounted for seven hundred and sixty two of the three thousand seven hundred and twenty two fatal falls between 2011 and two thousand sixteen. And that's just fatal falls. That's not all of the other types of fatal injuries that happened in the workplace. Those are just fatal falls back to 2016. And if we look specifically at roofing and some more current data in 2019 roofers accounted [00:06:00] for 111 of the five thousand three hundred thirty three fatal injuries. And that's just in one year, and it's up 15 percent from 2018. And the BLS data also shows that roofers have a fatal injury rate of fifty four fatal injuries per one hundred thousand workers. All right, so fifty four per one hundred thousand doesn't seem like a lot. Well, I guess to me as a safety consultant or just as a human, fifty four people dying on the job is a big number, regardless of how many workers you're comparing it to. But let's add some different perspective to that. So the average fatality rate across all industries, regardless of what the industries are, is three point five per one hundred thousand workers. So that makes the rate for roofing 15 times higher than the average. And it's only preceded by fishing, logging and pilots or flight engineers with a higher [00:07:00] fatality rate. And while those industries logging fishing in flight engineers have a myriad of different exposures that could cause fatalities and a significantly more limited set of choices for controlling the exposures, roofing fatalities come almost exclusively from falls and fall protection or prevention, or excuse me, roofing fatalities come almost exclusively from falls and then fall protection and prevention technology has really exploded over the last 10 or 15 years, and there's been a huge increase in what's available to the person working on a roof. So to help us explore fall protection and how it applies to roofing and tearing down some of those stats and maybe giving you some better ideas about what to do when you're on a roof, is David Kozlowski, president and owner of Safe Approach right here in Poland, Maine. So, led by David Safe Approach's team designs and builds fall protection equipment from harnesses, [00:08:00] anchors and lifelines to safety netting and custom fall protection worksite solutions. Over the years, they've developed some really creative fall prevention solutions for a variety of different industries. So David, you were on the podcast back in March of two thousand twenty one talking to us about the basics of fall protection. Welcome back today, and I'm glad to have you to talk about some more specifics. David Kozlowsky: [00:08:24] Peter, thanks. And thanks for having me back. It was a lot of fun last time and hopefully people got something out of it. And hopefully I can give you some good information that people can take back to their places of employment and help them implement safer work practices. Peter Koch: [00:08:43] Oh, I'm sure they will. There's a lot of great information on the other podcast. We talked about the hierarchy of controls and different types of fall protection and fall prevention that were out there and when to apply it. And I know we were talking before the podcast about how prevalent roofing [00:09:00] exposures or working on a roof. It doesn't have to be roof work, but working on a roof is. And just the other day I was driving down my road and two property owners were actually standing on the peak of the roof, installing a chimney lining. So there was not a stitch of fall protection. Well, let me tell you, the only fall protection was in my car driving past them. It wasn't anywhere on the roof, and you made the comment to me that you spend the majority well, quite a bit of your time having conversations with different clients about fall protection for roofs because it can get a little bit confusing, I guess. David Kozlowsky: [00:09:39] Well, all the reasons that you gave earlier are still very prevalent. I mean, I spend a lot of time in my truck driving around, and I can't tell you how many residential roofing projects that I drive by where I still see them not wearing fall protection. Even though the exemption was removed many years ago, [00:10:00] they still aren't wearing it or. I'll see them wearing their harnesses, but knowing what to look for, I can clearly see that they aren't connected to anything, so I think they often put them on. So at a quick glance, somebody driving by might think, Oh, there they are, they're wearing their fall protection, but it's not actually connected to anything. And I see it, you know, so often they still a lot of them, for all the reasons that you gave, are very resistant to it. And I don't think it's really going to change until we can help change the attitudes in the hearts and minds of the people that are actually there to be protected. If they don't want to protect themselves, it's really hard to overcome that mountain. Peter Koch: [00:10:42] Yeah, it really is. And if you've never fallen off a roof or had an injury like that, it can be difficult to understand why you need it. Because some of those some of the comments that were made to resist fall protection are the reasons [00:11:00] why I'm not using it are actually valid. I mean, they can be uncomfortable. They can, if you're used to not having vertical lifelines and something else on the roof and you're just used to having a naked roof that you're on maintaining or re-shingling or putting new roof material on it. It does get in the way. It's a change. It changes your workflow and work process. David Kozlowsky: [00:11:26] Well, all of those all of those excuses are basically variations of the one single most common excuse, which is not just used in roofing, I've seen it with confined space training with all kinds of other types of injuries that can happen not just fall protection. They're all variations of the same basic excuse, which is I've been doing this job for insert number here a number of years and I've never had a fall, so [00:12:00] I don't feel that I need it. And I've heard that excuse in rooftop safety and confined space safety and all kinds of industrial safety applications where people just don't think they need it. I've been doing this job for 30 years and I've never even had a close call. Why do I need to do this different thing now to protect myself? And it all goes back to what you just said. If you've never fallen off a roof or if you've never got your hand caught in the machine or, you know, you've never tripped and fell into a hole or never been run over by a truck. You don't think that you need those protections. I mean, again, it's the attitude of the user is trying to overcome the attitude that you don't need it. And once you overcome that mountain, I think people will get a lot more receptive to it. Peter Koch: [00:12:51] Yeah, I'll relate a quick story. I have a good friend of mine that I worked with in a previous industry, and he and [00:13:00] I share a love of climbing. So he's got a great climbing background. And after we had a downsize at the company that I was working at, he actually went to go work for a local roofing contractor, and he actually brought that skill sets and understanding of not just fall prevention and fall protection, but actually if he's going to be setting up aide climbing or setting up protection on a rock face someplace. He wants to be able to work with both of his hands. So he sets up positioning. And so he brought a lot of that information to the company. And interestingly enough, when I got to work for MEMIC, he was one of or at that company was one of the first companies that I was assigned to from a construction standpoint, and I met him again on the job and I was looking at what he was doing and he had taken a lot of that thought process of, look, I get it. You know, from a fall standpoint, this is really not a whole lot different than if I'm climbing [00:14:00] somewhere in the wilderness. I can use that same technology to make my job actually a little bit easier to be able to feel comfortable. I mean, if you're installing metal roofing panels someplace, it's hot, it's reflective, it's slippery. Why can't you set up a system that will allow you to actually work more effectively right in there so it can be done? It totally can be done, David Kozlowsky: [00:14:24] And you just hit the nail right on the head. Most of the reasons why people don't want to use it is effectiveness of the fall protection. It's, you know, it doesn't. It doesn't do any good to set up a system that's technically quote unquote compliant that it doesn't work well. And I literally just this week went to look at a client who was looking to. They just had 11 ladder climb systems installed on some silos. So they had silos with these ladders and somebody [00:15:00] came in and said, you. Need to put climb systems on these, they installed it and the employees were complaining, so when I got there, the argument was is these aren't compliant? Well, I went and looked at them and they were. Everything was as it should be. But the ladders were too narrow and they had installed them, you know, in the center of the climb. And there was it was when I climbed the ladder, I found that it was extremely difficult to get between the ladder climb system and to step through and get on to the top of the tank. Very difficult. And when I came down, I said, I have to agree with the employees. This system is compliant. But it really isn't set up to be very effective. And so they were hoping that I could come in and figure out a way to modify and change or provide something new that would be a little bit more seamlessly integrated [00:16:00] into what they had and make it not just compliant but actually usable so that the workers felt safe and felt better using it. And you know, that's one of the other big things, especially with roofing is you were talking about in the beginning is not just the culture or the attitude, but you know, there is a certain amount of it that is cumbersome. It does get in the way, it's not easy and we haven't invented the perfect integrated seamless system yet. So, you know, we kind of have to work around that a little bit, but you can try to do things to make it as effective as you can and as seamless as you can with what's available out there. Peter Koch: [00:16:41] Cool. So we'll definitely get into that because I think that's a great discussion about what would be effective. And it's going to depend on the environment, the work that you're doing, the skill set of the people that you're going to have always it's going to have some price component to it. So because you know, you can always you can look to get the Cadillac or [00:17:00] you can look to get the jalopy one of the two regardless of what you have. If it is compliant, it definitely needs to fit within the work that you're doing to keep it effective because there's always that balance. We talked about this last time between safety, productivity and the quality of the work that you're doing. And if those aren't in balance, then something's not going to work well. And I think in the case of the silos, right, they focused on the safety component, but they missed the productivity and the quality component like you can't, David Kozlowsky: [00:17:31] Right? Peter Koch: [00:17:32] It wasn't functional for the work that they were doing. David Kozlowsky: [00:17:36] Right. And that becomes that's going to become plainly evident when we start talking about low slope roofs, because that's one area where there really is a vast difference between, you know, effectiveness and costs in some cases and the seamless integration on the on the flat roofs. Peter Koch: [00:17:53] Yeah, very true. All right. Awesome. So let's jump in and talk a little bit about the requirement so that OSHA has a duty [00:18:00] for fall protection and it's both it's a little different in construction and general industry. So could you talk a little bit about what OSHA requires for fall protection in the construction industry and in general industry? David Kozlowsky: [00:18:15] Sure. Well, there's obviously a million different areas we could touch on, but sitting in fall protection and kind of talking about roofs and kind of narrowing it down a little bit. You know, the major differences are construction. The construction standard has a different kind of set of rules for construction operations or the act of roofing, whereas the general industry standard does not, the general industry standard has a set of rules that apply to all. I get this question a lot. If you know John Smith works for XYZ Company and he's up there patching a roof, isn't he in, you know, roofing operations? So his standards [00:19:00] are different, and that is not true because he's not a roofer in the act of roofing. He's still under general industry. I get that question a lot. So the biggest difference is that in for most of your clients that are not construction related clients, they should be following 19 ten and not nineteen twenty six. They should be following the general industry standard. There's a slight difference in the height standard general industry as a four foot rule, construction has a six foot rule for most applications and some slightly different ones for connecting steel and some other things. But across the board, mostly it's roughly six feet. So those are the main differences. And then other than that, they both point towards the same standards. If you look at the requirements for safety nets or guardrails or personal fall arrest systems and the loading requirements and all of that, they all point to basically the [00:20:00] same thing. So the quality. Of product that you can use to solve either one is the same, so there's no difference there. And so I think what we're going to do is probably focus maybe a little bit more on the general industry. I guess today it's kind of confusing, but 1910.28 has a lot of information in it. And the construction standard, other than removing the exemption for residential roofers, hasn't that portion subpart M hasn't really changed significantly in the last number of years, so I feel like the listeners are probably pretty well up to speed on that. So maybe we'll focus a little bit more on the general industry. Peter Koch: [00:20:48] Yeah, I think I think we will. There's a that's a big topic, but before we delve into that, I think it is important to restate that it's been a number of years already since the [00:21:00] fall protection exemption for residential roofing has gone by the wayside. So that is no longer. If you are doing residential roofing, you are required to have fall protection when you are six feet above the ground or a surface above the surface that you're working on. David Kozlowsky: [00:21:18] Correct. Peter Koch: [00:21:19] So you got to have it. And there's multiple different ways to do that. And there's some different requirements if you're on a low pitched roof versus a steep pitched roof. And maybe we can spend a moment defining those two things because it gives a different threshold for the level of protection that's necessary. David Kozlowsky: [00:21:37] I was going to say most of your residential roofing would fall under a steep pitched roof. I know there are some houses built with a low, low, low slope, but most of them would fall under the steep. But OSHA defines the line of demarcation at four 12, four over 12, so four inches of rise and 12 inches of run. If [00:22:00] the roof is four 12 or less, then that's considered a low slope roof. It's walkable, and so the standards and rules are a little bit different. Once you get above four 12, that's a steep slope roof. A lot of the options for steep slope roof go away. A lot of options that you have for low slope go away, it becomes very limited. So on a steep pitched roof, you have basically, for practical reasons, pretty much personal fall arrest systems. You do still have guardrails which are extremely difficult to set up, especially on a residential roof. I've never seen anybody really do it effectively. Safety netting is still an option, but it's not really practical. So for a steep pitched roof, you're mostly limited to a personal fall arrest system, which would include some type of anchor, a connecting device that includes some sort of energy absorbing device [00:23:00] in it. And then your harness the big three. Peter Koch: [00:23:03] Yeah. And I think for those specifically for like the difference between your guardrail system, which is what you'd normally want to see from an engineering control standpoint for fall protection, you can set up on a steep pitched roof a good system that will prevent you from getting off the roof in the first place or falling off the roof in the first place. So if you slip and fall on the roof and you don't fall off the roof, you're eliminating the need for rescue. You have probably much less significant injuries that will occur if you're on a steep pitched roof, and all you ever do is put guardrails on the bottom and someone takes the big whipper from the peak of the roof. You're probably going through the guardrail because the requirements for guardrails are like we talked about the last time 200 pounds in any direction. If you're a 200 pound guy and you're sliding down the roof, you're hitting that guardrail with a lot more than 200 pounds of force. So you're going to the ground. David Kozlowsky: [00:23:58] Yeah, so the [00:24:00] options are a little bit more limited as far as tying off on a steep pitched roof. There really is very little reason or excuse in today's day and age why you can't other than making excuses about it being too hard or too difficult or too cumbersome. Other than that, there's plenty of product available. I don't care what kind of roof that you're working on. There's probably something out there that's compatible may require a little extra effort or work, but it's definitely there's definitely plenty of product out there that's available for that. Peter Koch: [00:24:37] Sure. And I think what you're talking about is really the anchorage, right? So that's the bigger challenge for most folks of where and how and what do I use to set up my anchor to connect my lifeline into or my lanyard into? And that becomes somewhat of a challenge. But like you said, there is a myriad of different types [00:25:00] of anchors that can be used. Out there, some which will penetrate the roof and some will not penetrate the roof, even there's plenty of different options out there for you. David Kozlowsky: [00:25:10] People just need to research what's available for options for residential roofing. There are different ways to set up a system which can make it easier and simpler. One of the biggest problems is rope management. So when you talked about setting up a system so that someone wouldn't fall off the roof, that requires good rope management. And so ninety nine percent of the complaints that you listed for a residential roofers basically center around the rope management so you have your ropes and your grab and you're constantly if you're doing it properly, your rope is almost always in one hand, and whatever you're doing is always in the other because you're always adjusting, especially if you're nailing shingles. Those guys are going back and forth on the roof so much it's almost [00:26:00] impossible to employ effective rope management. If you're not switching Anchorage points or if you don't have different people working in different sections of the roof because rope management can become, you know, dangerous if you're not paying attention to it. So in an effort to have freedom of movement and not get held up, most of these guys will just pay themselves out a bunch of slack behind the rope, grab and the anchor. And so what could potentially happen if someone fell off the roof as you could hit the ground before the rope gets taut, depending on how high the roof is and how much rope you have paid out so you can move around, it's basically you're putting it on for looks, but it has actually no functional value whatsoever. And so to manage that, it is a little bit more difficult a retractable [00:27:00] is a better solution. But there's a lot of people that would disagree with me on that. There's been many case studies done about retractables on pitched roofs and how quickly they lock up and the potential for someone to slide off the roof and actually not engage the retractable because they're not moving fast enough. So it doesn't think they're falling. So that would be ineffective in preventing them from necessarily falling off the side. But it would turn into, you know, a free fall once you went off the side. So there's many different people that have many different arguments on that, and I don't know that there's really necessarily a right answer other than the manufacturer. So you should always go back to the manufacturer if the manufacturer allows the retractable on a pitched roof, you can use it. If the manufacturer says no, then you, then you definitely shouldn't. But rope management is definitely the biggest complaint and the biggest area I see [00:28:00] with problems with roofing. So if we could find a way to make that easier or find ways for companies to plan the jobs to make it a little bit easier for the workers, then that would remove quite a few objections. Peter Koch: [00:28:16] Yeah, I'm sure that's a big objection that you have and you have a large roof where you have multiple people up there, even if it's just a couple of guys up there and they're crossing paths. It can be challenging just managing your own rope. And then, like you said, making sure that I don't have slack, that my rope grab is always at my anchor or higher. That provides the greatest level of protection for me because as you said, if I pay out enough slack to be able to move anywhere on the rope or anywhere on the roof that I need to without having to manage my rope grab. And I do take a fall. You may hit the ground or if it's high enough, you may not hit the ground, but you pull your anchor out because it's not [00:29:00] designed for the forces that the extended freefall will cause. David Kozlowsky: [00:29:06] And that's the biggest fear to me and to probably a lot of other people, too, is because, you know, if the product is not being used properly in a lot of cases doesn't really matter. Once the lawsuits start flying around, it very much becomes more about percentages and bean counting and how who, which companies we can get to pay out, how much money, rather than whether or not the person was actually at fault or not. And so that's a big fear to me and to a lot of other people with the roof anchors is, you know, they're only designed to hold a certain amount of load and used properly. They are fine. But as you said, if you're if you don't have or if you have too much rope paid out and you overload the anchor, I mean, it could, you know, it could come off the roof and then we're stuck proving [00:30:00] that. Wasn't the anchor that failed, that it was the usage and that can be that can be difficult sometimes. Peter Koch: [00:30:06] Very difficult, very, very, very difficult. David Kozlowsky: [00:30:09] And it behooves employers to pay attention to that too, because, you know, most of these contractors, you know, they leave it up to the employees to, you know, use the fall protection and they don't really pay attention. But I have news for all of them. They're going to get drug into it just as much as anybody else. If an employee falls off a roof and gets injured severely, even to the point of maybe disabled or worse, everybody's getting sued, including them, and they're going to start looking at their safety policies. They're going to start looking at their safety plan. If they have anything written up, they're going to look at the job. Was anybody paying attention to what they were doing and out of sight? Out of mind is not a not a good thing. Peter Koch: [00:30:56] No, not a good thing at all. And those are some basic requirements that OSHA has [00:31:00] from a compliance standpoint. They require training. They require you to have a plan before you go up on the roof. You're required to have the appropriate equipment for the hazards and exposures that your people have and that they're not exposed before they have training and access to the proper equipment. So those are all parts of the general fall protection requirements that OSHA has, whether it's construction or general industry. I wanted to back up just a second and ask you a question, and this is kind of in setup for a steep pitched roof. And these are this is not going to be a hard and fast piece. But in your experience, as you are looking at a roof or talking to an employee or an employer about setup, how do you assess a steep pitched roof as to where might be the best places to put your anchorages? Are there any recommendations that you would feel comfortable talking about? David Kozlowsky: [00:31:59] Yeah, so [00:32:00] a lot of it centers around the conditions of the job. So you're going to want to look at the size of the roof and you're going to want to look at, even more importantly, the fall clearance distance between the roof and the ground. There is a lot of fall protection out there that were you to be working and actually fall off the edge, may or may not arrest a fall, especially in residential. I mean, if you're looking at a, let's say, a six 12 pitch on a ranch, you know, a low built ranch on the eve of the roof may only be, you know, 10 feet or even less from grade. And so, you know, if somebody's standing near the leading edge and falls off, I mean, it becomes highly critical that the system was set up and is being used specifically if you even have any hope of arresting that fall before someone falls off. So [00:33:00] a rule of thumb that I try to go by is 15 degrees off perpendicular. So you want to look at your roof and you want to take a measurement on the length of it, and then you want to draw up a perpendicular line from the peak down to the to the eave. And then you want to draw two more lines in a V-shape from the peak at 15 degrees on either side. So you're drawing like a 30 degree window. And so what you want to do is you want to set up enough. If you're going to use a peak anchor and not a line of some sort, you want to set up enough peak anchors so you have the entire edge or eve of the roof covered in those 15 degree windows off perpendicular. That's a good rule of thumb. Number one So it's not really easy to say put one every so many feet or this or that, because depending on the length of the run and the length of the ridge, I mean, those can [00:34:00] all affect, you know, how often you may put one every 12 feet or 10 feet or even six, depending on what's going on. So to say X number of feet doesn't work. The 30 degree window is a much more effective system. And so what that does is that sets up enough anchors so that you can work an area. Your line will not be too far off center, so it gives you a good working area. It helps limit and prevent pendulum falls, so it prevents you from being tied off too far away from the anchor so that if you fall, you don't swing towards perpendicular because that's what's going to happen and then risk impacting something below you or even the ground. And it gives you enough points to have multiple workers up there so that each, you know, we recommend each one takes a zone. I know a lot of these guys like to lay shingles and literally run back and forth the entire length of the roof with the nail gun. [00:35:00] But. With this kind of thing that's really just not that practical. You're going to tangle up your ropes, tangle up your air hoses and tangle up everything, so you have enough anchors that there can be enough guys working their own zones to get that accomplished. So that's kind of a rule of thumb that we use that really helps setting up and then again, management paying attention to the amount of rope between you and the anchorage point. Peter Koch: [00:35:27] That's great. That's really good advice that 15 degrees off and then have overlapping zones so that you cover the entire roof edge. Good. I think that helps. So let's move from our steep pitch roofs because we'll have another we'll focus on that. Maybe another podcast. But what we really wanted to talk more about is that low pitch, that low sloped roof or a flat roof. And granted, there's a lot of roofs out there, not so much in the new England area from a [00:36:00] residential standpoint, but certainly commercially. There's a ton of flat roofs out there and there are some rules around building or constructing a flat roof that would be covered under the construction standard and some different operations. But once that's done, once it's built, the majority of the time, you're going to have employees or contractors up maintaining either the roof or the HVAC units or the skylights or something else that's up there. So let's talk some more about the low slope or a flat roof and how or what are the what are the standards and how does fall protection enter into managing the exposures around a low pitched roof in general industry? David Kozlowsky: [00:36:48] Sure. So the first thing is people need the first thing just by way of introduction is that people need to start thinking about their roof as another floor of their building really [00:37:00]. Most people don't. They think about the roof as being out of sight, out of mind. But OSHA considers it another floor of your building. If employees are going up there and doing work, which means all of the same standards that apply to general industry for work inside also apply on the roof. The four foot rule, the unprotected leading edge open floor openings, which would be skylights or roof hatches. I mean, all of those things, it's a walking working surface. And so kind of what they did with 1910.28 I felt like was they included low sloped roof into the walking working surface, integrated much, much more deeply to hopefully help people understand that, you know, unguarded floor openings and edges and whatnot on a roof are the same standard as they are inside your building. So what they did was [00:38:00] they took some of the construction standard and applied it. But then they included a lot of things that are not included in the construction standard. So what I can do if you want is just do a brief overview of what the what the standard basically says. So for low slope roof, for activities on the roof, even if you're patching a roof because you're not actually a roofer in the act of roofing or construction, you're just making a repair, which is maintenance. So even if you're repairing a roof or patching a hole or working on HVAC equipment, that's all wrapped into maintenance of the roof. So OSHA set up three zones now. So the old interpretations of there's no safe distance from the edge and all those vague things are pretty much gone away. They still don't feel there's any safe distance from the edge. However, they have at least now [00:39:00] set up some lines of demarcation and some options from what for what you may or may not do within those areas. So the two lines are six feet and 15 feet is the two distances that you need to remember. So your whole roof area should be protected, and the most dangerous area is area within six feet of the edge. They've highlighted that is obviously the most dangerous. You're the closest to the edge, a trip or a slip, you know, could easily lead to going over the edge. So any work or any activity at all, even if it's just walking and not working any activity at all within six feet of the edge of the roof must have a guardrail, fall arrest, fall restraint, personal fall arrest, a safety net, something. There's a list of things that they put in that you're allowed to do. They mostly center around guardrails, personal fall arrest and safety nets, and then fall restraint also kind of gets lumped into personal [00:40:00] fall arrest. So, but if you're within six feet of the edge, you either need to be tied off one hundred percent of the time to a horizontal lifeline or roof anchors or something, or have a guardrail or a safety net if you're within six feet of the edge. So the next area is what if I'm not quite six feet from the edge, what if I'm just a little bit more than six feet? What do I have to do? So the next line of demarcation is 15 feet. So if you're in a in a zone on the roof, that's between six feet and 15 feet, you have the same options that you had before. You can put a guardrail or you can have a horizontal lifeline or roof anchors or safety netting or some other form of fall protection, but they've also opened up an area of a designated area. So from six feet to 15 feet, if you are up there temporarily and [00:41:00] infrequently, they will allow a designated area. So what is temporary and infrequent? Well, they define it in the preamble. They don't really say it in the standard, but in the 500 page preamble to the standard that they came out with, they kind of they kind of defined temporary as two hours and they define infrequent as monthly. So if you're performing monthly maintenance, you are not up there infrequently. And if you're up there for more than two hours, you're not up there temporarily. So if you have an HVAC unit up there and you only go up twice a year to replace a filter, but it takes you more than two hours to replace the filter. That's not temporary and infrequent because it doesn't meet both standards, and it's important to remember that your roof area is considered one area, not just spot that you're working on. So this is the thing that I deal with all the [00:42:00] time. It's like, Oh, well, I'll just put a guardrail right here where this unit is, and I'll cover the standard. Meanwhile, there's 14 units on the roof, and they might only spend 30 minutes at each unit, but they're up on their roof for an entire day, working, replacing all these filters. So your whole roof area becomes the standard that you need to meet, and there's a few different ways we can. We can approach that. But just by way of general knowledge, if you're up there temporarily and infrequently, which means you're less than once a month and you spend less than two hours, both of those are met, then you can do what's called a designated area, which means you can set up a warning line system as long as you stay behind it. And it's very important to note that a designated area is very specific. It is a physical barrier between you and the edge of the roof. It is not a line painted on the [00:43:00] roof. It's not a sign posted on the thing saying don't go past this line. It is a physical barrier with actual standards. A warning line should be between thirty nine and forty five inches tall and must have a two hundred pound brake strength minimum and has to be visible from 25 feet away, and the posts need to withstand 16 pounds of force at the top. So all of those standards point to no, you cannot paint a line on the roof and call that your warning line. It's a physical barrier, and there's a bunch of reasons in the preamble they give why a warning line's a physical barrier, but you can do that around areas if it's temporary and infrequent. So then we've established now, OK, let's say the roof hatch comes up in the middle of the roof and all of my equipment is centered towards the center of the roof. Do I really need to do anything now because I'm more than 15 feet from the edge? [00:44:00]So at 15 feet, if all of your equipment is set up more than 15 feet and you're up there regularly, you know, like I said, monthly maintenance or weekly maintenance if you're up there regularly. Yes, you are still required to have something. You must still have a designated area to corral people into where they're going to be working. So we erect a lot of warning line at 15 feet back from the edge, where rooftops don't have units that are closer than 15 feet and they're much further towards the center. So we set up a designated area at the center of the roof, 15 feet back. We put the warning lines. You can go up there as much as you want and do as much as you want for as long as you want, if you have that designated area. If you're a small company and it's more than 15 feet from the edge, you have one unit [00:45:00] on the roof, you go up there once a year and you change a belt in the filter and it takes you a half an hour to do that. That is definitely considered temporary and infrequent. OSHA does allow you to not do anything under that rare situation. It's temporary and infrequent. You do not need to install any type of designated area or fall protection. However, controls would definitely need to be in place. So just because someone tells you, no you don't need to install any fall protection doesn't get you off the hook. And I've done quite a few things on this telling people, you know, they say, What do I need to do? And each situation is different. But at a minimum, if you have a roof that's temporary and infrequent and you're allowing employees to go up there without fall protection, we would recommend that minimum a roof sign off sheet for people that go up there to sign off, that they've had rooftop training. [00:46:00] We recommend that you have a map of the roof with a walk path delineated. And during the training, you tell employees this is where you may and may not go and this is where you stay and have them sign off on that. The roof itself should have a delineated walk path. There should be pavers or the glued down path or something. There should definitely be a delineated walk path from the entry point to the thing, and the sign off sheet should make sure people commit to staying on the walk path and not deviating from it. So those are at a minimum, a few things that people should do to cover themselves, because one of the big reasons why OSHA said there's no safe distance from the edge is because employees wander. They do it all the time. I've done it and he's sitting on a roof and you're walking around and you get bored or whatever. So you, you know, you walk [00:47:00] over to the edge and you look down to the parking lot, you see what's going on, and lots of people do that. They wander. So you want to make people sign off saying that they're not, you know, they're not going to deviate from that walk path. So that's at a minimum. Those are the kind of things you should do. So yes, there is a rare instance where you don't need to have fall protection at more than 15 feet from the edge, but it has to be temporary and infrequent. So those are the those are the three zones, the two lines of demarcation, six feet and 15 feet. And when you can and can't use a designated area or a physical, you know, fall protection or prevention system, and that's all in 1910.28, I think it's B 13 because the paragraph and it's all in there and you can review that. But those are those are basically the zones now. Peter Koch: [00:47:58] Let's take a quick break at MEMIC, [00:48:00] while we strive to help our policyholders prevent workplace injuries, we also understand that they do happen. No workplace is immune. And when they do happen, a solid injury management plan must be in place, including reporting and a return to work program. Statistics show that returning an injured worker to work in a temporary modified duty capacity instead of keeping them out of work until one hundred percent, will reduce both the length and cost of the claim, as well as increased the likelihood of a positive outcome for the worker and the employer. Did you know that MEMIC has created a seven step process for developing a return to work plan, as well as a matrix to rate your current plan against what our team has found to be the gold standard in return to work programs? Check out our claim, reporting and return to work resources at MEMIC.com/employers. Now let's get back to today's episode. Peter Koch: [00:49:03] That [00:49:00] makes sense, and I think there's a lot of information there. But it does make it a little more clear, so temporary and infrequent, you know, it is kind of unfortunate that they buried that in the preamble with those definitions are because I know that that information is or that question has come up quite often. What does that mean? But that was a great answer. So, you know, less than less than a month in less than two hours. And then the other point you made it shouldn't be lost on our listeners is that the roof is an, take the roof as an entirety. You could have one unit or you can have 50 units up there. And again, it doesn't matter if you're going to spend 30 minutes at one unit or 30 minutes on the roof, right? If you're going to spend 30 minutes at each of the 50, it's still going to be beyond that temporary requirement. So then you're moved into. I need to do something. I need to do something different. I can't. David Kozlowsky: [00:49:58] We've done a couple of roofs [00:50:00] where people have that situation where they have like I can think of one roof in particular that had a half a dozen units on the roof and they were all within 15 feet, not quite to the six feet mark, but within 15 feet. And so at each one, individually, they could maybe make an argument that it was temporary and infrequent. But the roof area itself, when they're up there, they're walking around and they're going from unit to unit and they're not paying attention to where they are. And so what we were able to do is we went up and we kind of corralled each unit with a guardrail and then we just set warning lines back 15 feet from the edge and then just had little pathways connecting the central part of the building to each one. So the employees were corralled within an area that was designated that you don't go out of this area. And then as they approached closer to the edge where they had the actual unit, there was a physical hard guardrail to meet to [00:51:00] meet the standard so you can do hybrid type systems. We do hybrids all the time that are combination of physical guardrail barrier and then designated area to keep people corralled and within the area that you want them to be. Peter Koch: [00:51:17] Yeah, great idea hadn't even really thought about it that way. I tend to be more black and white when it comes to some of those solutions, and that hybrid solution might be very effective. If you've got, well, if you don't have the ability to put guardrails up on the entire perimeter of the roof, which would be the most simplistic solution. But there is a lot of equipment to make that happen. David Kozlowsky: [00:51:40] This goes back to what you were saying when you just said that this goes back to kind of our discussion back at the beginning about, you know, seamlessly integrating and the cost. So the most effective solution, the simplest and most effective and best solution is for, you know, if you're up on the roof, you just put a guardrail around the perimeter [00:52:00] of the roof. Problem solved. You can have as many people as you want up there wherever they want. No limit. You can do whatever you want. You can shovel the roof, you know as much as you want and you're completely within the standard. But it's also really expensive. I mean, a lot of guardrail. Sometimes the weight is an issue. If we can't do penetrations, they want to do counter weighted guardrail. You know, with all the weight up there, sometimes that's an issue in the cost. So you know, there's definitely there's definitely the simplest and easiest solution isn't always the most cost effective. Peter Koch: [00:52:33] Yeah. So that's a great point. And it gets to the fact that you, you know, as a business owner or building owner, if you have a flat roof that you, you have to have people on, it may be worth your while to jump out there and contract with someone to do an assessment to figure out what are your options because you might want to say, Yeah, I can do that, we can put up guardrails all the way around the roof. [00:53:00] I hadn't even really thought about the if I can't penetrate the roof, from my stanchion, for my guardrail now, I have to have a weight that's going to allow for that 200 pounds of outward and downward force. And that's pretty substantial when you start thinking about how many stanchions you need on some of these large commercial roofs. So yeah, it's a really good point. Reach out get some help. David Kozlowsky: [00:53:21] Yeah, get some help. And each in each situation, you know, is unique. A lot of them are unique. So we have the ability to have a combination, like I said of guardrails and maybe warning lines or other solutions that might help somebody accomplish what they are trying to do without breaking the bank, so to speak. Peter Koch: [00:53:46] Yeah, great. Hey, so I've got a question for you and it's around access. So I got I don't have internal access to my roof. I have to have external access to my roof for whatever reason, right? Didn't get didn't get [00:54:00] planned correctly. Didn't wasn't in the budget to put internal access in, so I'm climbing up on a fixed ladder or maybe even a portable ladder. And how do I manage that type of thing within flat roofs? So what is what are the requirements around access zones? David Kozlowsky: [00:54:16] So what we usually do with a fixed ladder, first thing to do is look at the look at the height of the ladder. So if it's under twenty four feet, you don't need to do anything specifically with the ladder itself. But if it's over twenty four feet, then the ladder itself needs to have fall protection as of November of twenty eighteen. The standard for ladders was changed to basically say anything produced after that state after that date should not have a ladder well or cage on it and should have active fall protection. And then basically it was left that after November of twenty [00:55:00] thirty six, that I think the original standards said that all ladders had to have the cages removed. But I think they changed that to say that they only had to be removed if they interfered with the function of the fall arrest system. So if it's over twenty four feet and you have a cage, if it was built before twenty eighteen, you're currently OK. You have until twenty thirty six to upgrade that in retrofit it. But if it was built after that date, it should not have a cage on it and it should have an active fall protection system. So what we do, what we try to do with the ladders is once you once you've established that the ladder itself is safe and it meets the standards and it has fall arrest if it needs. Usually what we do is depending on again, the layout of the roof. If it's a small roof and there's it's densely compacted and there's a bunch of things up there. Normally what we just do is try to ring the roof in guardrail, [00:56:00] tie the guardrail into the ladder and put a swing gate at the top of the ladder. So you always want to have that swing gate just because that that becomes an entry point or an unguarded opening at the side. So if it's a larger roof and there's not a lot of stuff right in the area. What we usually try to do is we try to put like a little corral or a little runway. So we try to get back 15 feet from the edge of the roof, or sometimes 10 feet, depending again, on the usage and how often you're up there. But we try to get back at least 10 or 15 feet with a hard guardrail, little runway or corral with a swing gate at the end of it. And then we tie that into either additional guard rail or a warning line, a designated area from there. So we try to corral people to approach the ladder down a guardrail area. So as they approach through six feet from the edge, they're protected in between the guardrails [00:57:00] with a swing gate at the end, and then they can open the gate and get onto the ladder from there. Peter Koch: [00:57:06] Yeah, so full protection all the way through from the time you step into that six foot danger zone until you either get back onto the ladder to climb down or you get into the area that's beyond 15 feet or the workspace that you're within that warning line area. David Kozlowsky: [00:57:24] Yes. Yeah. So we usually tie hard guardrails back from some thing, either warning line or guardrail, or sometimes there is nothing. What we've done and we've done it a few places is we'll put a kind of the runway to the ladder with a gate and then at the end of the runway is either an anchor point or access to the horizontal lifeline system. So when they come out, they go on before they exit the kind of corralled area they hook on to the fall protection and then they go on the roof from there. That's most common on [00:58:00] roofs that have a little bit of a slope to them. I could think of one client that has it's a pretty low slope. It's definitely under four 12, but it's a white TPO roof. So when it's wet or if it's even snowed at all, it is absolutely treacherous. And so we definitely wanted 100 percent tie off up there. They didn't want to try to ring the guardrails all around. I'm not sure that it would have worked anyway unless they were permanently mounted because of the slipperiness of the roof and the counterweight and the fact that it was sloped. So it probably would have had to have it permanently penetrating. So we made sure that there was a swing gate at the ladder, that it was tied into the ladder, that it was highly secure all the way back to the point where they tie off onto the fall protection. So that's another option as well. You can always tie that runway back [00:59:00] into an anchor point. Peter Koch: [00:59:03] Yeah, that makes sense, and I haven't seen it employed, but I can see where that could be employed well, especially from a snow removal standpoint as we think about the New England area and you might have a multi-tiered roof where you might have a steep pitch above, but you've got an overhang that is within that four 12. And just to be safe on that, as you come up to stand on that, it's going to be less than six feet sometimes and having that horizontal lifeline running behind you that I can tie into and then shoveled down to the leading edge of that roof and then come back to shovel against the end. David Kozlowsky: [00:59:41] So, that goes beyond. So that goes beyond a kind of a controlled access zone into what we call a designated area. Peter Koch: [00:59:50] Ok. David Kozlowsky: [00:59:51] So we've done that quite a few times on roofs. So especially for shoveling operations on large roofs. One of the complaints is, well, I you [01:00:00] know, first of all, this snow up there, I can't tie off to, you know, roof anchors because they're buried in snow. The cables are buried or I need 10 guys up there shoveling and your cables only rated for two. I can't have five cable systems running around the whole roof. I mean, it's just not going to work. So what we do is a designated area. We take a section, we take the warning line and ring the roof with morning lines. So you can have basically as many people as you want back from the edge shoveling snow to one or more designated areas, which are areas closer than 15 feet where employees will stay permanently as movers to get the snow from the roof off the roof. So in those areas, what we do is we warning line it or guardrail it off and then install a couple of anchors so that when they go beyond the warning line and remove the warning line, they go into an area that has [01:01:00] anchors for fall protection. Those employees stay in that area tied off and move the snow off the roof and have everybody else kind of feeding snow towards them for shoveling. So again, another hybrid solution that's not uniform throughout the roof, picking pieces that work the best for each area. Peter Koch: [01:01:20] Now that makes, it makes sense. And I'm thinking it from thinking about it, from a business owner or a building owner standpoint. You might not actually have your guys removing the snow, but if you're installing a system like this, you're going to need to do a little bit of training about how this particular system works with your subcontractors so that they can take advantage of the safety or the protection pieces that you have, regardless of compliance, because again, go back to a comment that you made before. If one of your subcontractors falls off the roof at some point in time, you're going to get hauled into that lawsuit, or you're going to get hauled into the worker's comp claim as well. So regardless of how it works, you're going to get [01:02:00] tied back to it. David Kozlowsky: [01:02:01] From that, you're much more versed in that area than I am. So you would have more information about that other than I do know there is a bit of gray area in this particular type of applications to fire is who's actually responsible for the fall protection. The way it's mostly been handled is the building owner provides it because usually what happens is they'll say, OK, you can't do this unless you have fall protection, and then they'll either put it back on the contractor to bring all of their own fall protection, which becomes difficult when the roof is covered in snow. So the contractor kicks it back to the building owner and says, Well, OK, that's all fine and good, but what do you expect me to put up there when it's already covered in snow? So there's a little bit of gray area there. I know for building maintenance, especially façade maintenance, which is a different set of standards. We won't go into that today. But if façade maintenance, if you're over the side of the roof suspending doing [01:03:00] anything that does fall back on the building owner exclusively. So that's definitely there's no gray area there. But for this, I'm not really sure. Maybe, you'd have some insight into, you know, who is actually ultimately responsible for this or is it basically what I've been saying? It's basically an agreement between the building owner and the contractor as to who's going to supply it. Peter Koch: [01:03:27] So OSHA's going to look at it from the perspective of the you're going to have the exposing employer, the controlling employer or the creating employer. So there could be multiple different roles that the employer or the subcontractor can play, depending on what they're doing. So do you own the building and did you hire the subcontractor? Did you create the hazard? Did you expose the employee to the hazard? So there is some liability around there from an OSHA standpoint, depending on what part [01:04:00] you play in. That role from a workers comp standpoint, it's going to come down to who are you employed by? And so if I'm the worker's comp person and I'm insuring the subcontractor and the subcontractor didn't put the or didn't use fall protection, it doesn't matter because they got hurt. It's going to be on my dime and it's going to be something that I'm going to have to manage as the worker's comp carrier between myself and the person that I am insuring from a loss control consultant standpoint. When I'm going out to work with a subcontractor who might be in the business of either roofing or if they're going to do something for a snow removal or maintenance, then my recommendation is you have to protect your employees. So there's two routes for you to go. You can either work with that building owner to provide you with the appropriate fall protection that [01:05:00] fits within the work that you're going to be doing and the workflow that you have to do to maintain safety, quality and productivity, or you bring it yourself and you implement it there. So at the end of that long description, I think the bottom line comes down to not from a worker's comp standpoint, but or even from a worker's comp standpoint, because it helps clarify is to make sure that there's a contract that you describe who's responsible for what within the contract that you have with the subcontractor. So if you're the building owner or the business owner and you're reaching out to a subcontractor, make sure it's outlined in the requirement. Who's responsible for the fall protection and following all of the OSHA rules around fall protection? That would be that'd be my recommendation to one to make it clear and to then to have something to fall back to if there ever is the unfortunate situation where you do have a problem. Peter Koch: [01:05:56] It's been a great conversation so far around fall protection. What I like [01:06:00] to touch on it, just a couple of fringe things that come on to the flat roof discussion here. I almost said flat Earth discussion, but the flat roof discussion, right? So are there any requirements or changes to the requirements around or if there is around roofs size? So if I got a big roof or a small roof, are there any changes around what I need to do for fall protection around roof size, David? David Kozlowsky: [01:06:25] Not per the standard other than the roof size and the amount of equipment on the roof would probably it would do more to limit your options rather than to require a different set of standards. The only deciding factor in 1910.28 is the slope of the roof. And then after that, you know, the larger the roof, the more options you have if you have a small 20 by 20 roof. Obviously, it's going to be hard to stay more than six or 15 feet from the edge at all times. So it just basically would just do [01:07:00] to limit your options. Peter Koch: [01:07:01] That's good. That's a really good point and just a good thing to consider because I want people that are listening to understand that we're talking about the general industry standard 1910.28, not the construction standard where there are some changes if you're doing if you're working as a roofer or doing roof work, actually, there are some roof size requirements in there and we're not going to touch on those. That's going to be a topic for another podcast. So thanks for that clarification. Another one I have are what are the fall protection requirements if I'm actually doing an installation or building, say, an HVAC system on an existing roof. So I'm not maintaining, but I'm not actually building the roof. Are there any differences in what's required for fall protection if I'm doing that kind of activity, either as a subcontractor or as the building owner? David Kozlowsky: [01:07:54] Yeah, so that's basically going to go back to the activity. So [01:08:00] as you were saying before about the liability, the difference between, you know, workers comp and liability. So workers comp is made to cover the employees of the organization. And so basically, the 1910.28 is the general industry standard is I mean, it's not really a perfect correlation, but I kind of like in that towards the worker's comp kind of thing where it applies to the employee. So if you're XYZ company and you're maintaining the roof and your specific employees are up there, that's what 1910.28 is mainly s
Learn how to keep your workforce safe from preventable falls and well trained in fall protection. You are listening to audio from a webinar in the Safety+Health Webinar Series presented on Feb 23, 2021 by KPA. Watch the archived webinar video to see the presenter's slides at https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/events/199-fall-protection-stop-falling-down-on-the-job
Learn how to keep your workforce safe from preventable falls and well trained in fall protection. You are listening to audio from a webinar in the Safety+Health Webinar Series presented on Feb 23, 2021 by KPA. Watch the archived webinar video to see the presenter's slides at https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/events/199-fall-protection-stop-falling-down-on-the-job
In this episode, Ted and Barb welcome Patrick Harel, Fall Protection Specialist. As one of the experts on fall protection, Patrick talks about what needs to be improved within the field and gives some good advice and tips. He also shares some of the worst behaviors he sees in the industry today. According to Patrick, everybody knows the basics and the general, but everybody seems to overlook training and education. We take it for granted that people understand and know things. But people do not know how to use the equipment properly, or they misuse it. Younger generations look at the senior people and make the same mistakes. They need basic training. And they learn better when they can touch it and feel it. Fall protection is not simple. It cannot solve every issue. But when you need it, it is a great thing to have. Resources: https://www.healthandsafetynow.com (Total Health & Safety Solutions) https://safetyfm.com/ (Safety FM) Patrick Harel's phone: 920-216-9825 Patrick Harel's email
Part one of a two-part episode, based on an April 20th, 2021 webinar, addressing questions from stakeholders related to utilizing the ASSP/ANSI Z359 fall protection standards and improving fall protection programs. The webinar was held in support of the National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction, an event to raise awareness of fall hazards in an effort to prevent fatalities and injuries.
Part two of a two-part episode, based on an April 20th, 2021 webinar, addressing questions from stakeholders related to utilizing the ASSP/ANSI Z359 fall protection standards and improving fall protection programs. The webinar was held in support of the National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction, an event to raise awareness of fall hazards in an effort to prevent fatalities and injuries.
Keller and Heckman Partner Manesh Rath hosts OSHA 30/30, a webinar series that covers OSHA issues for 30 minutes every 30 days. Mr. Rath is a trial and appellate attorney with experience in general commercial litigation, wage and hour and class action litigation, occupational safety and health (OSHA) law, labor law, and employment law. This month's topic: Is An Employer's Knowledge a Necessary Element in Fall Protection Compliance?
ENTERTAINMENT RIGGING WITH SIOBHAN - INTERVIEW - THE ROPE ACCESS AND CLIMBING PODCAST Hello and welcome back to The Rope Access and Climbing Podcast. This week I'm chatting with Siobhan about the industry of Entertainment Rigging as well dive into a little bit of Suspension Trauma and Fall Protection standards. Please go and subscribe to her YouTube Channel and follow her on Facebook/Instagram https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg6yKjPhZYmUd7EFZUxt7-g Please make sure to subscribe to my channel for more videos like this, and don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow on Instagram for live up to date stories of experiences working in the field, creating new content, and news on upcoming guests. www.instagram.com/RopeAccess_and_Climbing Till next time, Mikey Stevenson
Falls are one of the leading causes of injury in the construction workplace. While falls from ladders, scaffolds, roofs and other elevated workspaces are the most commonly thought of risk exposures, falling on ground-level is often overlooked. Eli Mendoza and Luis Torres, Alliant Construction, discuss fall protection, the different behavioral responses towards various fall exposures and why falling on the ground-level should be taken as seriously as any other kind of fall.
May 20, 2021 Siobhan Colleen is a strong advocate for women working on the tech side of events, especially rigging. She obtained a BA with emphasis on Design & Technical Production from California State University, Fullerton. Her CSUF senior honors project was called – ‘Beginner's Guide to Fall Protection and Prolonged Harness Suspension'. Siobhan is a Fall Protection and Rescue instructor, SPRAT L1 technician and an ETCP Certified Arena Rigger. Since Covid her focus has been on her EdTech start-up Industry Explorers. Through interactive guest interviews the Industry Explorers podcast investigates a wide range of career options and personal development tools for her young audiences. Hopefully, this will allow Siobhan to reach new heights … no harness required! www.industryexplorers.com/ This episodes shout-outs go to: Palm Desert, CA www.Keedysfountaingrill.com Los Angeles www.thedollyllamala.com Las Vegas www.ellisislandcasino.com
In this first episode of our special five-part series on Falls Awareness, we talk to Brian Barron, Senior Manager of the Construction Health and Safety Program within the Ministry of Labour. Our first discussion with Brian considers the various methods of fall protection and the different situations in which they are required. Support the show: https://www.ihsasafetypodcast.caSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
We wrap up our special five-part series on Falls Awareness with our series-long guest, Brian Barron from the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development. In this final episode, we look at fall protection quick facts including common FAQs, the hierarchy of controls, training, fines, and much more. Support the show: https://www.ihsasafetypodcast.caSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Falls in the workplace are one of the leading causes of serious injuries and fatalities. Citations around the OSHA standards for fall protection have made the top 10 most frequently cited OSHA standards for the last decade. Fall hazard exposures exist in almost every industry and finding the right fall protection solution for your situation is not always easy. There are many factors that should go into making the right choice. On this episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I speak with David Kozlowsky, President and Owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine about his company and the approach they take with fall protection and prevention. Peter Koch: [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, I'm your host, Peter Koch, five thousand four hundred and twenty four. According to a February twenty sixth article in Safety and Health, that's the number of violations or citations in 2020 alone for the OSHA Fall Protection General Requirement standard for construction. And that standard sits at the top of the OSHA top 10 most frequently cited standards for the last 10 years, believe it or not. And if you looked at all the other fall protection related citations listed on the OSHA top 10 like scaffolding ladders and the fall protection training citations, you would get nearly 12000 citations related to fall protection alone for the year 2020. And if we look at beyond citations and look at injuries and how they affect people. Falls, even if you exclude falls on [00:01:00] the same level and just falls from one level to another, so falls from a height. That's one of the leading causes for serious injury and fatalities in the workplace. There are fall hazards in almost every industry or business. And personally, whether it's scaffolding, ladders, anchors, personal fall arrest systems, rope access or rescue. Fall protection training and education make up a huge part of what I do with the businesses that I work with. Well, we wanted to bring on an expert in fall protection to the podcast. So on the line with me today is David Kozlowsky, president and owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine. So led by David Safe Approache's team designs and builds a fall protection equipment and harnesses, anchors and lifelines, everything from that to safety netting and custom fall protection, worksite solutions. So, David, welcome to the podcast today. David Kozlowsky: [00:01:52] Thanks, Peter. Glad to be here. Peter Koch: [00:01:54] Yeah, it's fantastic to have you. You know, I've had the pleasure of working with Safe Approach during my time [00:02:00] here at MEMIC. And the team there has always been able to offer some sage advice, as well as design some custom solutions for a number of the policyholders that I've been working with. I think it's an important part of the story to get a little to know, get to know you a little bit more and about the company, because instead of jumping right into, again, right into the fall protection side of things and why it's important, I think it's important to know what your history is. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and the company's background and how you got to where you are today? David Kozlowsky: [00:02:30] Sure. Thanks, Peter. So the company was founded or conceived anyway? I would say right around 1988 ish, the previous owner, Roger, owned a business called Mobile Maintenance, which was kind of like a mobile mill writing maintenance type thing where he would go around to mills or various places and do work on site things that were difficult, either too large or too difficult to actually send out to be repaired. He would go [00:03:00] and had a truck with a lot of machine type tools and stuff and would just go around. And he was actually at a repair job in the town of Lisbon back around 1988ish. And while they were working around an open wet well either he or one of the guys there almost fell in. And so someone made the comment like, oh man, you know, somebody should put a net in this thing or something because it's 30 feet to the, you know, to the pump. And we all know what's at the bottom of a sewage pump station. So to add insult to injury, I guess so here they're like somebody should make a net for this thing or something. And so that's kind of how it was conceived. Incorporated in 1992, brought on some distributors and kind of launched the company from there. So from its very inception, the whole premise of the company was on innovation [00:04:00] and finding ways to help people work safer. As our logo says, sometimes something off the shelf or out of the box just doesn't cut it. And it's easy to have a catalog of, hey, here's my repertoire of harnesses and lanyards or whatever else I sell. But, you know, there's countless different situations that you run into in business where just something out of the box just doesn't cut it. It's not there. And so the company was conceived on that that principle and that concept. And so we've kind of gone from there since 1992. I came on to the company in 1998. I was young. I was twenty five years old. I really didn't know anything about fall protection or anything else, but spent the last 22 years kind of learning my way through it. And I really feel like I'm kind of a [00:05:00]example that the American Dream is still alive. I started at twenty five, I didn't know anything, but I was willing to learn and willing to work and started out in the shop basically getting dirty, working with my hands, learning how to make stuff, and then kind of from there graduated to turning some wrenches in the field and into sales. And then, you know, ultimately at one point basically being the general manager and kind of running the company. And now here I am. Twenty two years later and I own the business. So it's kind of a neat little story. You know, it's still can happen. People say the American dream isn't alive, but it's there. If you're willing to work hard and you're willing to learn and you're willing to pay your dues. And I think a lot of people don't know the term paying your dues anymore. If you're willing to do it, it's still there. You can do it. So here we are. Peter Koch: [00:05:57] Yeah, that's pretty cool because it's a great story when I [00:06:00] kind of think about it, because you back in 88, there weren't a lot of guidelines. I mean, the fall protection standard was there for OSHA and they told you a bunch of stuff. But I think there's a really great connection there where you said not every out-of-the-box solution is going to work every place. And that's a key part that I talked to policyholders all the time about, well, you know, here you're not following the standards for fall protection like you've got a fall protection exposure right there. How come you're not putting something into that? He said, well, the typical harness solution gets in the way or the horizontal lifeline solution that we could get from the Amazon catalog isn't going to work within this particular space or area. And being innovative around those fall protection solutions, I think is a key part. And it's a great way because you really had to understand what your what the exposures were and then what the company [00:07:00] needed. Not safe approach, but the company you're working with, what they needed in order to make the job not only safe but productive. And I mean, David Kozlowsky: [00:07:09] I think you're right, Peter. You have to really understand No. One, what OSHA's just telling you about, what are the regulations, No. One that you have to follow. And coming up with solutions within those regulations can still be out of the box without, you know, going through some of the traditional methods. You know, one of the things that we've worked on a lot is safety netting and safety netting is just one of those things that there's not a lot of stuff written on it. And you can be very creative and still follow the standards and the guidelines in the spirit of the law that they're giving you. That's where the original product came from. The Hatch ness, that was the first thing. I mean, it was taking something that was not traditionally considered a fall item and turning it into something, [00:08:00] testing it and certifying it and turning it into something. And that was in its infancy. I mean, harnessess weren't even body belts weren't outlawed until nineteen ninety six. I mean so back in, you know when I started it's like it was still kind of in its infancy regulatory wise. And so we carried that, you know, that desire to to be innovative and creative and help people find solutions to stuff, you know, all the way through to today. Peter Koch: [00:08:29] And it is funny how you still find some I don't call it older or maybe it's a traditional understanding about fall protection. Like you said, like body belts weren't outlawed until 1996. But you still find him someplace. You'll go different places and you'll still find people that have that particular tool in their toolbox of solutions that they'll put in place somewhere. And it doesn't really fit. So there's a lack of knowledge in some cases out there. I think OSHA has done a great job at educating [00:09:00] the businesses out there about what is appropriate. But it's a passive type of education that people need to want to get it. And in your case, too, I think I find that when someone approaches you, at least when I've worked with safe approach in the past, there's been an exchange of education. Like you're you're looking for information about what the exposures are, what the workplace looks like, where I'm willing to go. And then you're also taking that and educating me about, well, you know, the solution that you might think is going to work isn't going to work for these reasons. And here is how it fits within the standard. So that education about what's good, what's out there, what's functional, and then why is a big part about what makes safe approach pretty special and then how some of their solutions or some of your solutions work well within the workplace? David Kozlowsky: [00:09:55] Well, there's many different levels of education that takes [00:10:00] place when we go on a site visit. You know, as you mentioned, it's not always just, you know, what are the standards and how do I apply them to this situation? You know, and even in today's day and age, there's still a certain amount of education that takes place to get people convinced that they actually need it, that they actually should have it. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I tell people fall protection is like purchasing an insurance policy. It's one of those things that you hope you never need. And you might come to me and say, well, I've worked around this open hatch for 30 years and I've never fallen in. And I would say, well, if I was an auto insurer, you'd be a bad risk because they the numbers show you're going to probably get in an accident at some point. And if you've been here for 30 years and you haven't yet, there's a good chance you're going to. So just educating [00:11:00] people that, you know, you're not necessarily protecting for the everyday mundane tasks you're protecting for that one in a million shot, that one. And, you know, that thing that never could have happened. It just seems like, oh, this was a one in a million chance. But if that's that one time you're around an open hole and you know it's slippery and you get tangled up in a cord and you turn to look at somebody and you're doing three things at once. And next thing you know, you lose your balance and fall in. And you've done it eight thousand times and every time was perfect and you really don't think you need it. But that one time you need it, you want it to be there and educating people that just because you've done it a million times doesn't mean that there's not some value to protecting yourself. Peter Koch: [00:11:50] And that is a really hard lesson for some folks to swallow without having the experience of having been the victim of that particular [00:12:00] scenario. It happens both ways on my end. So I'll go into a company initially and I'll identify uncontrolled fall hazards that companies have and then on the other hand, I'll go in post accidents and do an accident analysis and help them figure out why it occurred, because someone fell because an unidentified fall hazard, something that they didn't actually take care of. If I compare those two experiences and I have the one company that hasn't had an incident occur, whether it's an injury or just a near miss, they're the ones that are typically harder to convince that you need to put a solution in place. But the ones that have had it happen and especially the ones where it's been, unfortunately, a tragedy, they're the ones that really desire a solution. But it's truly unfortunate that that is the impetus behind people being gung ho about putting a force protection solution in. And you [00:13:00] I think you describe it very well. It's like an insurance policy. So if you put it in place and you maintain it and you install it and you educate around it, then that exposure that exists because of the job and there's no other way to manage that risk. You put those fall protection tools in place. Now you're helping to prevent the tragedy from happening and that's that insurance policy. So that's a cool way of thinking about it, really is. David Kozlowsky: [00:13:27] That's exactly right. I mean, that's what we're trying to educate people, is that don't be the guy that calls me because you had somebody fall off something and you already have an injury. It's like let's , you know, work with this ahead of time. But we've had enough. And you can tell when that happens. I mean, there's been multiple times where in the past during our history, you can tell when you've gotten a call from somebody and you know that they had somebody fall there's an you know, an incident and now they're kind of in a panic [00:14:00] to come and, you know, put something in place. And so we just try to educate people to show them that they need it and in some cases show them that just because you opened up, you know, a catalogue and you see someone's, you know, list of harnesses and whatever, that just because you don't see that doesn't mean that there isn't a solution, that there's sometimes creative ways to come in and fix problems. Peter Koch: [00:14:29] Yeah, let's diverge a little bit, I think this would be an interesting time to talk about this particular topic. And let's talk a little bit about the hierarchy of controls and how it can be used to address fall protection, because I think a lot of people and maybe not some of the folks who are listening to this podcast, because, you know, if you're a safety person, if you were in charge of safety for your company, you don't always or you're not going to start at personal protective equipment as the end all be all for your fall [00:15:00] protection solution. But a lot of folks, that's what they jump to. I want a harness. I want a lanyard and I want an anchor. And when I put that in place, I'm good to go. Boom, I've checked the box. I'm safe. And that's not really where we want to start. So let's can you talk a little bit about maybe the hierarchy, like from elimination to engineering and administrative controls to fall protection and how that fits in with your process of coming up with a solution? David Kozlowsky: [00:15:27] Sure. I mean, when we go to a facility or go to look at a situation, you know, the hierarchy is to No. One to try to engineer out the fall to begin with. If you have a situation where there is a fall hazard, you want to try to look for solutions that engineer that out. So maybe it's a guardrail or something of that nature to take a situation where there is not an opportunity for a person to fall. So that would be at the most preferred [00:16:00] level. And you go down from there to kind of what is in the middle we call kind of a restraint type model where, OK, we can't really engineer out the fall. This isn't an application where we can, you know, put up a bunch of guardrails or put something to prevent people. But we could set up maybe some type of restraint system where you could use fall protection or PPE type equipment to prevent somebody from being able to get to the edge. And then finally, the honestly, what should be the last on the list. As you mentioned, a lot of people jump to first, but which should be last on the list, should be actual fall arrest. But then within that, once you've gone to a facility where, OK, we've ruled out the other opportunities. So we can't engineer out the fall. We can't prevent somebody from getting to the edge. We've determined that we actually do need [00:17:00] some type of fall arrest system. I would say we spend the most amount of time working within this kind of subcategory and that's educating people, the limitations of fall arrest and what you can and can't do with it and when it's appropriate to have something or not, you know, it happens all the time. I'll give you one example without naming any company names or anything. But a number of years ago, I was asked to come in and look at a situation where they had some concrete tanks that they were working on, those precast concrete tanks. And so the tanks were not overly large. They were only about seven or eight feet tall and they had to get on the top of these tanks to work on them. And they called us in and said, hey, listen, we've got this building and we want to put a cable up here so we can, you know, tie off while we're on these tanks. And after a rather long discussion, I basically [00:18:00] tried to educate them, say, listen, this isn't the right application. No. One, this building is extremely old. It's barely engineered to the snow load. I'm surprised it hasn't collapsed yet, much less attaching fall protection to the roof. But you're lucky to be maintaining the snow load in this region with this old prefab building. And you want to string a cable between them and you're only going to be eight feet off the floor. And by the time somebody falls off and the cable stretches out in the lanyard stretches out and all this happens, the person is going to hit the floor long before my system even catches you or arrest the fall. This isn't the right application. You need to do this. But that wasn't the cheapest alternative. And, you know, it was it was sad to see them go and purchase a couple of beam clamps and a cable and put it up there so that if anybody walked through, they could look up and say, [00:19:00] oh, see, we have our fall protection it's in place. We're doing what I supposed to be. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's working. And I would say, you know, going through the hierarchy is one thing, but spending time on helping people find something that's proper and works like it's supposed to is where I would definitely say we spend the majority of our time. Peter Koch: [00:19:25] This is one of the reasons why I liked working with you guys in the past, because. You will spend the time to do the education about a particular propered solution or proffered solution and whether or not the company decides to go with you to purchase the solution that you're recommending for them to put in place, you're still going through the process of educating them and why this is a good spot and not just, hey, here it is. This is this is what's going to work for you. Put it in place or don't put it in place. Whatever you want. You really want to see people succeed. And I think [00:20:00] just from having some conversations with you and knowing the team is there's a real desire within safe approach to not have people hit the ground. I mean, you go back to 1988 and Roger and putting that net in place, I mean, the mentality around many places would have been, well, don't get so close to the edge and you won't fall. Right. Not to think about putting a net in place and and building on that. I think that is a philosophy that kind of flows through safe approach that you really you don't want to see anybody hit the deck. So education's part of that. And determining the right solution is part of that. David Kozlowsky: [00:20:39] It's a tough thing to do to walk into a place and not sell somebody something because what they're wanting to do isn't going to work. It's easy to walk in and say, OK, well, I'll take your money. And here, here's a system. And meanwhile, you know, 10 years down the road, somebody [00:21:00] falls and it fails or doesn't work like it's supposed to. I mean, it's a tough thing to do to sometimes go in there and have to tell people that. But the other side of that is that we've been really successful and really good at coming in and helping people find what would work and helping people, you know, come up with solutions that sometimes are a little bit out of the ordinary or out of the box, to use a cliche. But that's you know, we've been really good at that over the years. And I think that's what's helped us succeed, is working with people to come up with those solutions. Peter Koch: [00:21:39] Yeah, for sure. Can you talk a little bit about some of the fall protection challenges that you've seen over the years that you talked about the one with the concrete tanks? I'm sure that there are plenty of other examples that you might be able to share with us. But I think it's important for people to see that, you know, some of the fall protection needs [00:22:00] aren't just on the construction site or aren't just in a heavy industry like oil or mills, but it exists in many different places. It could be hospitality, it could be hotels, it could be office buildings, depending on what you're doing. So could you share some of them? Maybe the fall protection challenges that people have come to you with and maybe some of the solutions that you've been able to offer? David Kozlowsky: [00:22:25] Sure. That's one of the unique things. You're right, Peter, about fall protection is that it really touches so many different industries. I think a lot of times people associate it with construction. So they you know, they just think, oh, here's an iron worker, you know, erecting steel. Well, obviously, he needs fall protection, but it really touches almost every industry. We have customers that range from semiconductor facilities, that make machines that make semiconductors and people think, oh, electronics, [00:23:00]why do you need full protection for that? But, you know, these are big machines, similar to what the concrete tanks were, seven, eight feet tall. They're up there on the top of them. They're building them and they're constructing them. And they're in a room, a clean room maybe where there's limited opportunities for tie off. Where can you connect to, you know, limited space. And so, you know, that's a unique situation where somebody might not expect that there would be a fall situation. But there there was there was a really unique challenge. You had a very low ceiling, very high machines, a clean room, very tight tolerances for space. These machines were packed in here. It's not like you could just be rolling guardrails around the room and, you know, put them up. So on those type of things, the stuff that we we look at, we did a job a couple of years ago for actually the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. They did a dome rehabilitation project and we put in a custom safety [00:24:00] net that was a safety slash work platform that actually that would suspend inside the interstitial space at the dome and allow workers to actually clean the dome. They would actually climb in it and and clean it. So, I mean, there's another example of kind of a unique situation where not many people would think of. Then there was the usual stuff. I mean, even what, you know, maybe we would consider a run of the mill, but not so run of the mill is, you know, even in construction, there's countless times that we run into where we'll have let's take the stanchion, for example, our bridge stanchions sell hundreds of them all over the country with a couple of common dials. One clamps to a steel IBM, one can bolt to concrete. Those are the two most common types of bridge girders, right? Steel and concrete. But, you know, there's we came [00:25:00] up with a solution a number of years ago for we had a contractor that has some kind of oddly shaped box beams that had no flanges on them. They weren't concrete, they were steel, and they had no way to tie off. And honestly, the solution was really something as simple as taking the stanchion that we already had the to connect Lifeline's to, and engineering and building a new kind of base that would have, you know, there would be able to adapt to this type of beam. So it could be anything from a, you know, a unique work situation to even just something as mundane as, hey, we have a different type of connection here. And everything that we've seen on the market doesn't work. And you adapt something that you have to work with this. So those are you know, those are the most common types of things that we run into, Peter Koch: [00:25:53] Again, thinking outside the box, but sort of inside the box. Like, you don't have to design something from scratch, but you can look [00:26:00] at a particular situation, modify what you have in order to fit the application, but still managed to fit it within the standards that you have to meet in order for it to be certified for fall protection. David Kozlowsky: [00:26:15] Sure. Yeah, right. Exactly. Peter Koch: [00:26:18] So that kind of leads to another question here. Like if someone has a fall protection problem like there, listen to this podcast and going, hey, you know, I we've been really lucky over here. And I'll give you an example. We had working with a hospitality organization that had a fairly sizable flat roof space that they had to get up there and shovel all the time here in New England when we when we have snow. So up in northern New England, we still have snow somewhere through the wintertime. And even like this year, snow has been throughout the country. Even Texas had snow this particular year. So the flat roof, they you [00:27:00] know, they didn't really see it as a fall protection hazard because for the most of the time, they were not anywhere near the edge. But the maintenance guys or the people that they hired to help with maintenance were there shoveling the roof off. So they had to be close to that particular edge all the time. And if the company sees an issue like that, they could come to you and say, hey, we need a solution. But I imagine that in your initial conversation with those guys that you need some information that would help you point in a direction for a solution. So if they're listening like, hey, you know, we've got this pretty unique challenge or maybe it's a mundane challenge, we just haven't been able to figure it out. What are some things that you need to know as the solution provider about a situation that would help you get an idea of where you might need to go David Kozlowsky: [00:27:56] There's a short answer and a long answer to that question. And, [00:28:00] we'll stick to somewhat the short answer for the purposes of this show. But the short answer to that is, is there when you when you start to get into this, you find that there really is no set of standard questions that you run into because each situation is is different. And, you know, I would take your example of a rooftop situation and then coming up with a solution to that, we would need to know things like, well, how big is the area that we're trying to cover? Probably the most importantly, how, you know, how many people do you want to put on the roof at one time? Because the solution for well, I want to send one guy up there to shovel off this. You know, this little hippogriff or something is different than, you know, here we have a warehouse facility and I need 30 guys up there shoveling the roof. The solutions are different for those two applications. [00:29:00] So, you know, you would want to know how many people you would have working up there. Unfortunately, you need to know how much those people weigh. That's a question nobody likes to ask. But I'm going to tell you, this comes up more often than anything these days is OSHA's limitations of, you know, the three hundred and ten pounds fall protection. And while we do have gear that's ANSI rated for higher than that, that is an important question that on. Unfortunately, we ask a lot how many people how much do they weigh and then what are they doing, how close to the edge or how close to the fall hazard are they getting? What functions are they performing while they're there? Those are types of generic questions that I think apply to most any situation. And we would do we would start there. Peter Koch: [00:29:52] Yeah, that's a I think it's a good list because it really does hit on all the hits on all the cylinders to getting you thinking about. All right. [00:30:00] So where what potential solution is there? Is it a restraint device? Is it truly a fall arrest system or is it an engineering solution where you can do all those will tend to lead you to one way or the other. And if you don't ask those questions and you just kind of look at through the catalog and like as the business owner going, well, it looks like this might be the solution you might put a solution in that actually adds more hazards than an appropriate solution would. David Kozlowsky: [00:30:32] Yeah, because those questions would lead into other questions once you've established the duties that they're performing and how many people and what they're trying to accomplish, depending on the situation, those questions lead into other questions like, well, how far we've established that, you know, we need some fall protection here. Well, how far could the person fall, you know, talking about the tank situation, if you're [00:31:00] only six feet up, off of a lower level, you know, a horizontal lifeline with a shock absorber lanyard attached to it is probably not the right solution. It might not be the right solution, even if you're 20 feet above a lower level, depending on how you're tying off and what you're doing. So those questions lead into other questions like how far is the fall distance? Are there any hazards below the fall area that we should take into consideration? And then ultimately that leads into which, again, this is way deeper than we probably have time for today. But OK, so they we've engineered a solution and a person fell off. How do we get them down? You have the fall clearance, you have all the gear you need and everything is lined up, except that there's no conceivable way of getting the person down in the amount of time that you have. So you end up saying, OK, we for that reason, we actually [00:32:00] need to engineer out the fall. You can't have someone fall here because you're never going to be able to get them down or get them out, especially in the case of, say, like a confined space entry where there's only one way in and one way out and you don't have the ability for a couple of firefighters to come in with a stretcher and put you on it and carry you out. And so the rescue and retrieval aspect of it is another important thing that we usually would hit on. Again, leading into the basic questions would lead into those depending on the situation. Peter Koch: [00:32:38] Let's take a quick break. In 2018, 320 of the 1008 construction related fatalities were attributed to falls. If you're listening to this podcast before May 3rd, of 2021, then you still have a chance to participate. The eighth annual national safety stand down to prevent falls and construction [00:33:00] is happening from May 3rd through the 7th of this year. If you're listening to it after you still have an opportunity, a safety stand down is a voluntary event asking employers to take a break and talk directly with their teams specifically about safety. The stand down around fall protection asks employers to talk specifically about fall hazards their team is exposed to because fall hazards exist in almost every industry. Think about ladders or roof maintenance and scaffolding. MEMIC is asking that all employers take advantage of the resources offered at www.OSHA.gov/stopfallsStanddown and talk to your team about fall hazards. Even if you're not in the construction business. If you're looking for more fall protection resources to help you educate your staff or inspect your workplace, check out the MEMIC safety director at www.MEMIC.com/WorkplaceSafety. Now [00:34:00] let's get back to today's episode. Peter Koch: [00:34:04] It's a really, really good point about rescue, and it's I think it's something that does not get discussed enough when we talk about fall protection. I had a client a number of years ago where I went to go to his construction client building residential homes, and they were building a house somewhere like, you know, township six, row 11. So, you know, you don't have emergency facilities really close. Like it's going to be an hour before someone can get to you if you call nine one one, if you have reception on that day, like if you're on the wrong side of the house, you're not going to get reception. So we're looking at like three and a half stories on the Walk-In basement side. And they're planning the roof process. And it's like, well, what do you have for full protection of all? We have the typical you know, they've got a rope grab and a vertical lifeline and a temporary roof anchor and which would work fine for most cases. But if he fell working by [00:35:00] himself and he fell and there was any injury at all, he's not coming down until his wife decides that. Well, it's been a little longer than normal. Maybe I should call the bar first and then I should try to find if he's still at the work site. And so from then, like a fall arrest solution was not the solution that we discussed. It was like, you really should get a piece of machinery in here to do the work that you need to do because, you know, you can get a lift up there. Of course, it's going to probably cost you a little bit more. But if you do fall, the result can be tragic and it's not really where you want to be. So that's a it's a great point. I think people miss that that rescue process because they never think that they're going to fall. They just think most of the time that the fall protection solution is there to check the box. And I'm never going to use it. David Kozlowsky: [00:35:48] Yes. This goes back to the insurance thing that we were talking about. Exactly. It's I'm going to check the box. It's here. Yep. I did it. So I'm protected. But you never expect that you're actually going to use it, convincing [00:36:00] people to stop thinking in terms of money, which unfortunately in private industry that I mean, that is a very important topic. You just can't get around that. There's not unlimited budgets for everything. But sometimes the consequences of a fall or a serious injury could be life and death when, you know, maybe spending just a few extra dollars on the right solution or maybe a different solution would possibly prevent that. So you're right. Peter Koch: [00:36:29] Yeah. And I think another part to consider, and I'm not sure if this sort of falls within your wheelhouse within Safe Approach, but training for those people who are going to be using the solution, whether it is an engineered solution and understanding the limitations or a restraint solution or a personal fall arrest solution. So training of those people that are using it is pretty key. I know I've had conversations when I go to companies that are using a fall protection solution, regardless of what it is. [00:37:00] And you talk to the employees and there's a certain level of training that OSHA requires. And I like to think that there should be a certain level of understanding for that individual who is using that so that they understand what box they have to work in David Kozlowsky: [00:37:15] And they should be. And that's one of the things that we that we talk about quite a bit. So part of the survey process is discussing that very thing. And this comes up very often in rooftop safety, as you were talking about earlier. So sure, we spend we spend a very high percentage of our time these days working on rooftop safety. And the certainly the two most common solutions would be some type of guardrail or some type of roof anchor or lifeline or fall arrest type apparatus. And part of the discussion we invariably have is, OK, so there's two different costs to this project. There's [00:38:00] the upfront costs, the initial costs, the capital expenditure of X amount of dollars for a full guardrail system or a roof anchor or a lifeline system. And quite often, you know, the guardrails get overlooked because it's more costly. The capital expenditure is, you know, just more expensive upfront. And people immediately want to go to. Let me just throw a couple of cans up there and cable and call it good. And part of the discussion invariably has to be the training that you were just talking about and telling the customers, say, listen, if you put the guardrails up there on the roof, they're set and forget you go up, you put them up there. You can have unlimited people. You can move around as much as you wish, and you don't have to inspect them and certify them. And there's really no training involved. Whereas if we put fall arrest up there, you're limited to a certain number of people that however many people are allowed to be on the [00:39:00] engineered into that system. You're limited to the weight of the person, because part of the engineering is the weight and the dynamic forces of the fall, you're looking at training for every person that goes up there, because we wouldn't recommend that you allow people to use an active fall arrest system without, you know, having some training and understand what you're doing. You're looking at an annual inspection every year. You're looking at recertification every five years because we don't want to just leave these up there and then hope they're going to work 10 years down the road every five years. You need some type of recertification. So there's all these things that come after the fact that may or may not make it your best solution, even though the cost may be less upfront and the training that's involved in it may be one of those things that might be a limiting factor for you, training all your users and having roof sign off sheets and just covering [00:40:00] yourself and coming up with a rescue plan. Peter Koch: [00:40:03] Yeah, there's a lot more to it, depending on what solution that you have. And you're right, I always look at safety being kind of one of three things that have to get managed within any company. People who have heard this podcast before have heard me talk about it. And it's not nothing new. It's safety, quality and productivity. So you have all three of those things which have to be in balance in order to be a successful company. And I joke all the time. I can make you as safe as you'll never have an injury. You'll never get anything done. Right. So I can put safety first all the time and you'll never have anything else happen because there's you're preventing that person from engaging anywhere near that particular exposure. And the exposure happens to be the job that they need to do. Like, you can't be a sewage technician without going into the hole you can't be a roofer without going up on the roof. So you [00:41:00] have to have a balance in there so that it fits. So you've got to find the solution that fits within that safety, quality and productivity triangle. I think from a different view standpoint is not putting safety at the top of the triangle, like in productivity and quality or at the base. You flip it around and you put that point at the bottom. So safety is the thing that balances productivity and quality. And if you have a good, robust safety program and think about that from the the perspective of the scenario that you just proffered there with the choice of guardrails versus a horizontal lifeline solution that you have for people. Well, the horizontal lifeline solution is good as long as you stay within your productivity demands for what it's designed for, guaranteed you will have productivity, demands that will exceed the design of that system, ike you will need more people up there or you'll have [00:42:00] to have a heavier person that gets up there. Something will exceed the design of it. So if you think about safety as as the base right, the guardrail on that particular piece will balance productivity and quality much better than that horizontal lifeline would. So having that robust safety program really fits within puts you in a better position to have a safe and healthy and productive workplace so. David Kozlowsky: [00:42:25] Well, trying to trying to balance risk with productivity and with investment. I keep talking about the money aspect because it seems like it comes up so often is that, you know, people want to spend money on their businesses that do one of things. They either save them time or save the money in productivity and safety. Let just be honest. Very rarely does either of those things very rarely saves you time on your project or labor. And it certainly doesn't save you money unless, you know, there was a potential [00:43:00] incident down the road. We could talk about opportunity cost for a potential accident. We talk about that all day long. But, you know, up front at least, you know, going back to the whole insurance analogy, you're spending money on something that you hope you never use. And if you're creative and use the term you just did robust with your safety program and you spend, you know, time managing it properly, it really doesn't have to have always that big of an impact on what you do. If you're being creative in spending the time to actually analyse the problem and come up with a creative solution, it doesn't always have to cost a ton of money and it doesn't always have to be so obstructive that it's limiting the job that you do and you're not. There's certain times where it does. I mean, you know, there's times where you just can't get around that. [00:44:00] But that doesn't have to be the norm. And that's partly what. We do we try to come in and listen to customers concerns, listen to the, you know, the task that they're doing, as I mentioned before, and find out who's doing what and where and see what we can do to be as seamless as possible to make it so that with as little impact on productivity and bottom line cost, come in and try to make that person safe. I mean, there is a hierarchy. I mean, let's get back to that briefly. I mean, you know, OSHA never says that there is never allowed to be any risk in a job. Certain jobs have risks. And so it's not practical to take every job that's ever out there and say, oh, there's absolutely zero risk of an injury or zero risk of anything. Even OSHA doesn't realize that otherwise there would be no such thing as fall arrest. Because, you know, quite honestly, sometimes the act of falling and getting caught can injure [00:45:00] you. I mean, there's a possibility that you can get hurt during a fall. So I think if you just manage it effectively, try to engineer out the fall whenever you can and then when you can't spend some time to manage it effectively. And I think you would find that not always does it really affect your productivity and your bottom line as much as you maybe think it does. Peter Koch: [00:45:24] And I think that's a good place to sort of come to a close here, because that is something that is hugely beneficial to going to an expert like yourself to talk through the different solutions and have an idea or get an idea about how a particular solution might actually affect you positively or possibly negatively, instead of just looking through the file protection catalogue and finding the, you know, fall compliance and a bucket in buying that and putting it out there, it might not be the best solution. But sometimes that's [00:46:00] the only resource that someone thinks they have. But there are other resources out there. And I think safe approach brings a good philosophy to understanding the problem and also to developing a solution. So I want to throw this question at you here as we come to a close. And this kind of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning in your history of just coming into it cold into the fall protection process and learning and taking chances and understanding and then finally getting to the point where now you're the president and an owner of Safe Approach. So if you go back to when you started, like, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you started out from a fall protection standpoint? David Kozlowsky: [00:46:46] That's a really tough question. No one's ever asked me that before. I mean, my brain immediately goes to all of the knowledge that I've gleaned over the years. And I [00:47:00] don't know if I have an immediate answer to that. I would maybe have to think about it some more. But when I first started out, you know, as I went through the learning process, I know I put a lot of pressure on myself to think that I had to be the be all end all to everybody for everything, or they weren't going to call me or they weren't going to trust me with anything. And maybe I guess to answer your question, I think probably one of the biggest things I've learned is that sometimes it's OK to tell somebody, you know, I don't have a solution for that, or at least I don't have the right solution for that. Or maybe I need to go think about it for a while and come back. And just to be honest with people, not that I was ever dishonest, but it was really hard in the beginning to be OK with not knowing everything. And 22 years later, I don't know everything. [00:48:00] And every day I learn something. And it's you know, I think if you ever get to the point where you think you know everything, that you don't know anything. And so it's really just a matter of kind of I wish I could have gone back and told myself, it's OK. It's OK to learn. Yes, fall protection is important. Yes, people's lives are on the line. And yes, you definitely need to take it seriously. But it's OK to not know everything and it's OK to tell people when you don't know. And I feel like people will trust you more if you tell them that you don't know, rather than trying to pretend like you do know everything. Peter Koch: [00:48:37] I think that's actually great advice. And especially in the fall protection realm, you know, if you're just starting out in your own business as a contractor or you come into a safety position and you're looking at a particular situation to look at it and be OK with not knowing, but also understanding that there are experts out there that you can rely on or you can go to the help find [00:49:00] the best solution. And it might not just be one expert. It might be. A combination of maybe it's your insurance carrier and they have a safety expert with expertise around the situation that you're looking at, and maybe it's someone like yourself, David, who works for a specialized company that deals with that particular piece. So knowing where your resources are and being comfortable in that tension of yeah, I think I should know, but I don't know. And that's OK as long as I seek out the best solution that's out there. David Kozlowsky: [00:49:30] Smart people surround themselves with other smart people because they realize they don't know everything. They can't possibly know everything. So you try to surround yourself with people that fill in the blanks and fill in the gaps of what your skill set is. And even myself, I know my skill sets. I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. And I try to surround myself with people that are good at things that I'm not good at. And so, you know, if you're out there and you have a unique [00:50:00] situation or you have, you know, a tough spot that you haven't tackled because you just don't know what to do and maybe you do like I do and procrastinate rather than tackle it, then you know what? Maybe, you know, maybe just reach out to somebody for some help and say, hey, let's I need to tackle this and I don't know what to do and let somebody come in and give you a hand. And we can do that. We can give you a hand. We work with you, too. We're not we're not pushy. And we don't we don't come in and try to sell you a bunch of stuff you don't need. We just try to come in and help. We really do. Peter Koch: [00:50:34] That's awesome. And you set me up for this question. So where can our listeners find out more about safe approach if they do have that question? David Kozlowsky: [00:50:42] Sure. You can find us on the Web, www.safeapproach.com, but certainly the phone I'm old school. I like to get phone calls. So 800-471-1157. You can give us a call. You're going to go to the website. And if you're listening [00:51:00] to this podcast and you felt compelled to call me, it's probably because you need something that's not on our Web site. So it's a great resource. But if you go there and you look at the same harnesses that you see in everybody else's catalog, certainly pick up the phone, give us a call. You can email me Davidk@safeapproach.com and we don't charge anything for we're not consultants. So I don't, you know, charge people to come out and do site surveys. Everything's related to solutions. So, you know, we don't want to come out and, you know, charge you for, you know, a site survey and give you reports and all that stuff. But if you have a genuine solution that you need help with, we don't charge anything. We come out, we'll give you give you an honest look. And if we can come up with a solution, we will present one. Peter Koch: [00:51:54] Perfect, thanks. That's awesome. David, I appreciate that. And I imagine you'll get a couple of calls about [00:52:00] that. David Kozlowsky: [00:52:01] Thanks for having me. Peter Koch: [00:52:01] Yeah, no problem. So that about wraps up this week's Safety Experts podcast. And David, again, I wanted to thank you for sharing your expertise with us. And I'd like to have you back at some point in time, because we've only really scratched the surface over the different types of fall protection and the requirements that are out there. And we haven't even really touched the standards that are out there either. So if you're willing, I'd love to have you back on. David Kozlowsky: [00:52:23] I would love to. This is a lot of fun and yes, definitely any time. Peter Koch: [00:52:27] Fantastic. So thanks again for joining us. And to all of our listeners out there, thank you. To today on the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. We've been speaking about fall protection basics with David Kozlowsky, president and owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine. And if you have any questions about fall protection or would like to hear more about a particular topic on our podcast, email me at podcast@MEMIC.com. Also, check out our show notes at MEMIC.com/podcast, where you can find additional resources and links to other podcasts, as well as our [00:53:00] entire podcast archive. And while you're there, sign up for our Safety Net blog so you never miss any of our articles or safety news updates. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you took a minute or two to review us on Stitcher, iTunes or whichever podcast service that you found us on. And if you've already done that, thanks, because that really helps us spread the word. Please consider sharing this show with a business associate friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. And as always, thank you for the continued support. And until next time, this is Peter Koch reminding you that listening to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast is good, but using what you learned here is even better.
On this episode Ted and Barb talk to Brent Rehberg. For over 20 Years Brent has helped his customers to find cost-effective solutions for safety needs. Through excellent project management and customer service, he strives to be better every day and help in any way he can. Brent currently works for Lighthouse Safety as a Fall Protection Specialist. Fall protection is not optional, it is required by law. You may not know where to start or even realize you have a need. Brent collaborates with you on a solution that protects your people and your business. Brent shares lot of information and advices on fall protection. According to Brent, training is very important. Make sure you have a rescue plan in place. In an emergency, seconds matter. Make sure you understand the facility and where you're going to be working, and that your emergency response team and the local fire department know you're working at height, so they can be ready. Try to eliminate the hazard. Be proactive. Use the right equipment. Resources: https://www.healthandsafetynow.com/ (https://www.healthandsafetynow.com) Brent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentr79/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentr79/) Brent's email: brent@lighthousesafety.com
Adam Rubin, CSP, corporate safety director at Zachry Group, and member of the ANSI/ASSP Z359 Committee on Fall Protection and Fall Restraint shares keys to success for fall protection training, and how to make training stick with workers.
WORKING AT HEIGHTS – ROPE ACCESS VS FALL PROTECTION - THE ROPE ACCESS AND CLIMBING PODCAST Hello and welcome back to The Rope Access and Climbing Podcast. Today I'm chatting about Rope Access Vs Fall Protection. I start to dive into the differences between the two certifications to kind of shine light on the conversation and the big misunderstanding here in Canada. Please let me know in the comments below what you're doing. Follow us on Instagram for live up to date stories of experiences working in the field, creating new content, and news on upcoming guests. Tag us in your own stories and experiences for a chance to be featured! www.instagram.com/RopeAccess_and_Climbing I hope you enjoy, Cheers Mikey Stevenson
This episode deals with the question of how we define safety and what safety is.
There is a difference between being a civil safety professional and a servile one.
Falls from heights are one of the leading causes of death in the workplace. The right protection and training are essential to save lives. Prepare your employees to work from heights safety with Thomas Kramer, safety consultant and engineer at LJB, Inc. and president of the International Society for Fall Protection.
This episode will take a deep dive into what is required for the appraisals. We will cover photo requirements, Undercarriage and Tires, Limited Function Test, Seller comments. Safety: Wearing your Fall Protection in ALL Aerial Work Platforms.
OSHA is overseen by the Department of Labor. Their mission is to assure safe and healthful working conditions for all working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and by providing training outreach, education and assistance. As a company it's important that you understand how to comply with OSHA standards, by understanding what they mean and who has the authority to implement for your company in order to avoid violations. We explain in detail what a safety program looks like, the top ten violations, who needs a safety program, and when training has to be implemented. The top ten OSHA violations - 1. Fall Protection 2. Hazardous Communication (not having an actually written program or information readily available) 3. Scaffolding 4. Control of Hazardous Energy (the employee is properly trained) 5. Respiratory Protection (OSHA has made some adjustments due to COVID-19) 6. Ladders 7. Powered Industrial Trucks (retraining every three years, and who can train) 8. Training Requirements for Fall Protection 9. Machine Guarding (what do general requirements mean - all items that have a point of operation) 10. Personal Protective Equipment - and face protection Not every organization has the same exposure to hazards, at minimum training is handled at hire or at the onset of a particular task), but each organization must evaluate what safety program and standards apply to their industry.
Fall protection is a very important topic for people that work from heights. One of the most common reasons employers are cited by OSHA in San Antonio, Texas and beyond is for violating fall protection regulations in incidents where workers are injured on the job. When employers do not provide proper fall protection and enforce the use of it, workers can be seriously injured or killed on the job. Transcript: Justin Hill: Welcome to Hill Law Firm Cases, a podcast discussing real-world cases handled by Justin Hill and the Hill Law Firm. For confidentiality reasons, names and amounts of any settlements have been removed. However, the facts are real, and these are the cases we handle on a day-to-day basis. [music] Justin Hill: One of the earliest cases I worked on as a young lawyer involved a worker who was injured on the job. In that case, OSHA did a full investigation following his injury to determine whether or not the employer had followed the OSHA required regulations regarding safety. I learned, in that case, how difficult it is to get information from OSHA, how important they are in the investigation, and what the outcome is of their investigation. That case involved a man who was injured after falling from a scaffolding. There were questions about whether or not he was provided the safety equipment, and whether or not he was using it properly at the time his injury occurred. OSHA is a federal agency who is tasked with evaluating and enforcing safety rules and regulations on employers and at worksites. Generally, their goal is to make sure that they require employers, and those in control of worksites, to make sure that they're safe. If somebody's injured on the job and OSHA does do an investigation, if they find violations or deficiencies regarding OSHA standards, they have the ability to find and sanction employers. In 2019, they listed what their most commonly cited violations were. The number one most commonly cited violation was fall protection, and the general requirements of fall protection outlined by OSHA. This is a standard that outlines where fall protection is required. It goes on to say what types of systems are required, what has to be given to employees. It's designed to protect employees, if they're walking, working, standing, or whatnot, on surfaces that don't have a protected edge, like a fence or a wall, and it's above six feet. In those situations, employer should know that they have to follow OSHA regulations regarding fall protection. Some of the most commonly cited sections of the fall protection guidelines that lead to employers being sanctioned or fined include employees that are working in the residential section, the residential construction area, and that their activities, if they're six or more feet above the ground, that they have to be protected by some guardrail, or a safety netting system, or they have to be wearing a personal fall protection, or fall arrest system. Now all of these OSHA regulations get very deep into the specifics of what fall protection is required, and when it's required. For example, we know that OSHA regulations require that if employees are working on a roof that is considered to be a steep roof, that doesn't have protected sides, that they're required to have things such as toe boards, or nets or other types of harness, or fall arrest systems. The fall protection guidelines of the OSHA regulations are there to ensure the safety of workers that are working at heights. We've discussed previously how fall protection is so important, because falls and slips and trips are one of the leading causes of injuries and deaths on the worksite. We're going to go ahead and outline some of these other most commonly cited OSHA regulations over the next few episodes of Hill Law Firm Cases. [music] [00:04:41] [END OF AUDIO]
In this episode, Andy sits down with Adam Lee, President and CEO of AALL STOP! Survival & Safety Trainingll Stop. Andy and Adam talk today about All Stop and how they got started all the extensive survival and training courses they have to offer on HUET, BOSIET, THUET, FOET, Fall Protection, Safeland Rig Pass, Lifting and rigging. BCD Travel Our travel provider of choice, as they make our Oil and Gas traveling life easier. And they are giving you free coffee for your next trip! Upcoming Events Dug Midcontinent Conference and Exhibition FLNG World Congress Algeria Oil & Gas Summit Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conference and Exhibition Thank you to our sponsors: Liberty Oilfield Services Discovery Land Services Denver Petroleum Club Global Energy Management Program OGGN is always accepting Happy Hour sponsors. If you would like to get your company in front of our large young, professional audience, reach out to our Project Coordinator, Brooke Omachel by e-mail More Oil and Gas Global Network Podcasts Oil and Gas This Week Podcast | Oil and Gas HS&E Podcast | Oil and Gas Startups Podcast | Oil and Gas Industry Leaders | Oil and Gas Legal Risk | Oil and Gas Onshore | Permian Perspective Engage with Oil and Gas Global Network LinkedIn Group | Facebook | modalpoint Connect with Andy Lash LinkedIn| E-Mail | Oil and Gas Global Network
Falls are a constant danger for arborists working at height, and understanding the limitations and differences between fall protection, fall arrest, and fall restraint systems can be the difference in going home safe, or taking a trip to the hospital. Ed Carpenter explains in this month's Science of Arboriculture.(A,M,T,L,Bm)
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