Focusing on Wintertime Jobsite Safety

Winter will soon bring wet weather, snow and ice. And as building continues, the focus on jobsite safety in these conditions becomes more imperative than before. Properly protected jobsites go above and beyond the minimum OSHA mandated requirements for safety.

Beginning with the basics, it is law that all elevated surfaces, stairs, and other potential falling hazards keep workers protected with a handrail system. Typically, jobsites fashion handrails with wood, however, this can be problematic on concrete and it tends to look unprofessional. One of our newer products seeks to address these issues. Safety Boot is a temporary guardrail system that meets all federal and state safety standards. Safety Boot allows builders to quickly mount a temporary wooden guardrail to a plastic boot that anchors to the floor. This accelerates installation time, strengthens the guardrail, and looks far better than a typical wood on wood handrail.

Safety Boot offers a safe and professional looking jobsite guardrail

Another integral part of jobsite safety is properly securing ladders and other standing devices. On wet and icy floors ladders may become unstable and pose substantial risk to the user. An easy and multipurpose fix for this potential issue is to use absorbent floor protection. Using a product such as Surface Liner Vapor, you will have a safe, dry floor surface that is securely held in place. This will protect a floor from damage and keep a ladder from slipping.

Surface Liner Vapor provides the best slip-resistance of any floor covering

Other forms of jobsite protection include items that are worn on site. Water resistant shoe covers with a high-grip footing allow workers to safely walk on wet surfaces that would otherwise be slippery. Depending on how wet, muddy, and dirty a jobsite is, there are different options of shoe covers. Tyvek, plastic, and cloth provide differing levels of protection, with Tyvek and plastic providing the most water resistance and cloth offering up the best footing.

Provided a jobsite maintains stringent safety standards and provides additional materials to ensure safety, enduring the wet winter weather ahead should be a straightforward process. Keep your floors covered, your handrails on, and your workers well equipped.

To learn more about any fo the products mentioned here, or any other surface protection or jobsite safety information, email us at sales@buildsitepro.com or visit our website www.buildsitepro.com