Fall protection: structural efficacy of residential structures for fall protection systems

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bethancourt J ; Cannon M ; Bethancourt J ; Cannon M
• Description:
  Many in the residential construction industry believe that fall protection for workers adds unacceptable costs to the job. Some suggest providing fall protection could cost $5,000 or more per structure, but this is an arbitrary number that the authors' research and real-world experience could not reconcile. Another prevailing idea is that fall protection always requires modifying and reinforcing structures prior to use, which requires the services of an engineer who must also validate and certify the fall protection system. Others have voiced concerns that there is not enough ground clearance on typical single-family structures for workers to use fall arrest systems (Home Builders of Central Arizona; NAHB, 2000). However, in the cases analyzed for this article, falls on residential and light commercial construction projects were arrested by fall protection systems installed by the builder and/or specialty trade contractor on unmodified structures. No engineer was involved in any of the installations, and eave heights were as low as 8 ft. These findings suggest a cost-effective and practical solution for providing fall protection in residential and light construction while meeting the requirements of federal regulations. One value of evaluating these falls is that each had unique circumstances that tasked the efficacy of the fall protection system and anchorage. Readers can compare fall protection anchors that they use to those described, and predict with a high degree of confidence that their anchors, when used in accordance with 29 CFR 1926(d)(15), will function as intended if falls do occur without the need for additional specific engineering assistance. Data have shown that the engineered structural requirements as provided by the International Building Code (IBC) and bracing guidelines outlined in the Building Components Safety Instructions (BCSI) are more than adequate to enable wood frame structures to support loads of falling workers in accordance with OSHA requirements and ANSI standards. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accidental Falls Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Case Reports Construction Industry Occupational Health Safety Safety Management Wood Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Accident-potential Accident-prevention Case-studies Construction Construction-equipment Construction-industry Construction-workers Equipment-reliability Fall-protection Ground-control Height-factors Injury-prevention Regulations Safety-climate Safety-education Safety-engineering Safety-equipment Safety-practices Safety-programs Safety-research Standards Structural-analysis Wood-products Work-analysis Work-environment Work-practices Worker-health Workplace-studies

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• ISSN:
  0099-0027
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article ; Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Arizona ; District of Columbia ; Maryland ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health ; Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America ; North America
• Volume:
  60
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046388
• Citation:
  Prof Saf 2015 May; 60(5):58-61,63-64
• Email:
  jbethancourt@actasafety.com
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR - The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  Professional Safety
• End Date:
  20240831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7aa5b1ced4fcdd52f53e2f81ceb053a941579c172c892812d4a1c9ba06aacd52ad5b36595932d93118a28598f5359d7a57287a5331d03e5303c717eb4578b84c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/201461/cdc_201461_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 703.08 KB ]