Wood dust on building sites: the controls a carpentry crew can use
Carpentry work makes a fine dust that is a respiratory hazard in its own right. The controls that work are cutting off site, extracting at the tool, cleaning up with a vacuum and fitting a respirator where the others fall short.
11 min read
Topic
Site Safety
Articles and news about Site Safety for Australian builders.
Wood dust on building sites: the controls a carpentry crew can use
Carpentry work makes a fine dust that is a respiratory hazard in its own right. The controls that work are cutting off site, extracting at the tool, cleaning up with a vacuum and fitting a respirator where the others fall short.
11 min read
Protecting your crew’s hearing from power tools and saws
Hearing loss from site noise is permanent, and it builds so slowly that workers rarely notice it until the damage is done. Protecting a crew starts with knowing which tasks are loud, not with handing out earmuffs.
11 min read
Storing and moving gas cylinders safely on a house site
Gas cylinders are the most ordinary item on a house site and one of the least respected. Where they stand, how they travel and what is kept beside them decides whether a bad day stays a bad day or becomes a fire.
12 min read
Hot work on house sites: welding, cutting and fire watch
Hot work inside a half-built house is a different risk from the same work in a workshop. The controls are planning, clearing, a signed permit and a fire watch that outlasts the torch.
11 min read
Getting experienced subbies to follow site rules without a standoff
Experienced subbies know their trade better than most supervisors, and that is exactly why the old ‘because I said so’ approach fails. Here is how to influence behaviour and hold the line without a standoff.
11 min read
Emergency and evacuation planning for house sites: the site plan and the crew briefing
An emergency plan that lives in a folder is not a plan. For a house site, it is a marked-up site plan and a briefing that every subbie on the job has actually heard.
14 min read
First aid kits, trained officers and emergency plans for NSW house sites
First aid on a house site is not just a kit in the shed. It is a kit, a trained person, a route out and a route in for an ambulance, all decided before the first trade starts.
12 min read
Safe demolition and strip-out before a rebuild
Demolition is the phase where the site is least like the job you priced, and where the safety controls are hardest to retrofit. The work is short, the hazards are concentrated, and the trades on site are often the ones you have least control over.
11 min read
Working near overhead powerlines: safe approach distances and load movement
Overhead line contact is one of the few site hazards that can kill the operator and the spotter in the same moment. The control is planned load movement, not vigilance.
11 min read
Managing plant and equipment around the public on tight suburban sites
On a suburban infill site the public is often a metre from the tracks. Separation is a design problem you solve before the machine arrives, not a barrier you throw up after.
12 min read
Toolbox talks that suit the stage of the build
Toolbox talks work best when the topic matches the stage of the build. A talk about excavation hazards is wasted on a framing crew. This article organises talks by construction stage and covers how to run them, not how to file the paperwork.
12 min read
Recording injuries, near misses and toolbox talks: building an incident register that survives the job
Notification is the part everyone practises. The register is the part that decides whether you can reconstruct the job two years later, when the paperwork is all that is left of it.
13 min read