I put some plasterboard up and laid some loft insulation last week. Can I have an article too?
Builder-in-a-hole outrage sparks Special Projects Bureau safety probe
Last year, I uncovered the perfect antidote to the internet in an entertaining dig-a-well project, which went down, well, well with those who subscribe to the tenet "man cannot live by IT alone". However, one aspect of the project did cause a bit of a health and safety furore among our beloved commentards: the moment when …
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Friday 10th May 2013 12:19 GMT DavCrav
"It depends. Just how much safety gear was involved?"
Full boiler suit, safety goggles, face mask and gloves. I didn't need a miner's lamp though as there was a strip light already there. Enough, or should I load up with more when I'm putting the floorboards on top? I must admit that I didn't do a proper risk assessment...
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Friday 10th May 2013 10:49 GMT Anonymous Custard
Risk assessment?
Shouldn't he also have a wad of fully completed (in triplicate) risk assessment forms in his hand? Or at least stuffed in a suitable pocket for use in breaking falls and possibly for lighting aforementioned fag in the woods?
And is the mask due to being in your proximity and the remaining effects of the chickpea diet?
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Friday 10th May 2013 11:21 GMT Mostly_Harmless
Re: Killjoy statistician Nazi here
Fair comment, but relatively speaking how much opportunity is there for a UK worker to get killed on the job nowadays? So many of the potentially fatal occupations (factory work, mining, etc.) are a bit thin on the ground and the working population are largely deskbound ....last I heard, nobody's even been RSI-ed to death
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Friday 10th May 2013 12:04 GMT BristolBachelor
Re: Killjoy statistician Nazi here
One thing about those stats. From the moment you leave your front door, until you get back to it, any accidents you have in Spain are "Work related" (if it wasn't for work you'd still be in the house, watching "fisica o quimica"!)
Also bare in mind that each weekend they publish how many lemmings were killed on the roads that week, and for things like bank holidays, they celebrate afterwards that there were 10,000 less deaths on the roads this weekend, compared to last year's mad rush to celebrate the extra day of weekend.
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Friday 10th May 2013 12:25 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: Killjoy statistician Nazi here
European attitudes to all rules and regulations, including H&S, seem to be like this:
- For the Germans, any rule is a good rule. The more stringent and unreasonable, the better. Zu Befehl! I am only following orders, etc.
- For the Club Med countries, rules are suggestions that we might follow if it doesn't interfere in any way with our lifestyle.
- For the British, rules are things to worry about.
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Friday 10th May 2013 11:16 GMT petur
The way to do it safely
Dig a hole for one ring and put the ring in, and another one on top. Then start extracting earth from inside the rings and watch the whole thing sink slowly while digging. Put another ring on top when you can.
Digging the complete hole first is just madness because of the very real risk that the whole thing will collapse with you inside. Dead.
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Monday 13th May 2013 13:04 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: The way to do it safely
Sounds slow and prone to the very real risk of going very wrong. Proper assessment of the material you are digging in will give a good idea of the likelihood of collapse. Let people do jobs the way they want to, but make sure the liabilty reflects that. If Rui wanted to it that way, and no-one else was at risk, who are you to preach? That's why I downvoted you.
That said, there is no way I would have gone down there - not because of the risk, but claustrophobia,
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Friday 10th May 2013 11:18 GMT GreyWolf
Ref doghouse and "tenuous IT link"
Obligatory reference to Raspberry Pi. Camera driven by Pi, image analysis to ensure that the automatic dog-feeder that you install will feed the correct amount to the correct dog. You might as well get the R-Pi in its idle moments to record Radio 4 on iPlayer and play the programs back to the dogs time-shifted to Central European Time. And check the temperature inside the doghouse and spray water onto the roof when it gets unpleasant for the dogs.
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Friday 10th May 2013 11:33 GMT JaitcH
Safety is never a joke
The picture showing a man standing in a completely unsupported pit is sickening. I have witnessed a 'hole' collapsing, along with a trench, in Toronto, notwithstanding they were lined with heavy sheet steel.
As a contract employer likely you would have been likely held criminally responsible for the mans death, had the hole collapsed, and undoubtedly been made to make financial support payments to the surviving widow and children.
Then we readers would be able to laugh - at your stupidity.
Hope the well dries up soon.
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Monday 13th May 2013 13:10 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: Safety is never a joke
JaitcH, I often agree with you, but your small mindedness on this ("Hope the well dries up soon") is really rather disgusting. I doubt Lester threw Rui down the pit, and it is probable that, had Lester tried to stop him, the answer would have been along the lines of "It's alright, I know what I'm doing!"
Just because you witnessed something unpleasant once doesn't give you an excuse to be objectionable about it. I'm willing to bet that I've seen at least as many unpleasant things as you, but it doesn't lead me to be pompous about it.
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Friday 10th May 2013 12:06 GMT Richard 120
Re: Woah there
That's a terrible waste of power, surely you need to replace their old CRT job with something less power hungry, I know you have your issues with power, or is their place a "separate residence" on a different spur?
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Friday 10th May 2013 12:09 GMT ukgnome
Missing equipment and H&S nightmare
I find the picture of the nice builder chap in all his PPE quite frighting, he is clearly missing a grubby cup of super strength builders tea!
Also I note that you have pink plastic patio chairs, don't you know how lethal they can be, a total H&S nightmare waiting to happen?
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Friday 10th May 2013 12:22 GMT BristolBachelor
Well, well, well
Punchline: 3 holes in the ground.
I don't remember seeing the original instalment, but this is what I've got just north of Madrid: 2 official wells; both built from brick; the type with 6 round, through holes instead of a frog on top. These are laid side-on to allow the water through. The wells are 4 m deep; one is 2m in diameter, the other is approx 4m x 10m rectangular. The lowest I've ever seen the water table is 2m below ground; the highest is just above ground. God knows how they built them, or how many people died in the progress. I have a 2hp pump from the wells, and the water level in the wells doesn't even change after pumping out 40m³ of water.
The 3rd "well" is the original plant room for the swimming pool. It is half underground, and in the winter it fills up to the level of the water table due to small pin-holes in the concrete.
On the subject of H&S, you should've seen how they emptied the propane tank of 800L this week to take it away. Admitedly, they did manage to get most of it in the lorry; some just made the nieghbourhood smell funny, and the rest created the largest flame and loudest roar I've ever experienced.
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Friday 10th May 2013 16:50 GMT kempsy
It's all good fun until somebody dies
We have had two deaths around here (pop. approx 85,000) in the last six months due to people being buried in holes/trenches - one of which was in a trench only about 4 foot deep. A nasty statistical blip I am sure you would agree, but one that does make you more sensitive about the risks. It might be common sense to know when to enter such a hole and when not to, unfortunately common sense ain't that common.
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Tuesday 14th May 2013 12:52 GMT SImon Hobson
Re: It's all good fun until somebody dies
Indeed, and I've witnessed plenty of things over the years where you have to wonder what the people involved were thinking.
The problem is that Rui has probably been down lots of holes like that, and so have his mates, and they've all come up alive - ergo, no problem. But as you point out, just occasionally it goes wrong and then it's too late. The reason we (in the UK, dunno what the situation is in Spain) have bodies like the HSE is to deal with people who really ought to know better. In many cases they do know better but it's either inconvenient or too expensive.
The biggest problem we have is that there are some extremes and some stupid stuff done in the name of "elf n safety". "Elf n safety" does **NOT** prohibit anything (well hardly anything). It certainly doesn't prohibit school kids playing conkers. And it certainly doesn't mandate "hi vis everywhere".
However, lots of stuff is done (or banned) in the name of elf-n-safety because those responsible don't know (and often don't want to know) how to manage any potential risks. So instead of applying sensible rules, they just do stupid things - imposing "hi vis everywhere" rules, banning stuff, and so on.
But that is not what health and safety is about.
It's about simply looking at the risks inherent in an activity - and working out how to minimise/mitigate/manage them. It might be that the ground conditions are such that Lester's hole was highly unlikely to collapse - but I suspect the risks aren't as low as Lester or Rui think. But the risks are fairly easily mitigated - the techniques for doing so are well known and not hard - but they probably do come under the category of "inconvenient" or "too costly". And besides, elf-n-safety is just a bunch of busybodies out to stop all activity right ?
I'll leave with this thought ...
Have a look for the poem "I Chose to Look The Other Way". Try to imagine how you might feel if, at some point, you find yourself in such a position.
Think you know what it feels like knowing that by inaction you could have contributed to someone's death ? Knowing that had you taken a different course, then someone might still be alive today ? Really think you know how it feels ?
Now find someone who is in that position. I really really don't think they'll describe it how you think. All I'll say is that I strongly recommend you stay on the side of wondering what it feels like. It's a one way street and there's no coming back - there have been people who have committed suicide because they couldn't live with it.
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