¶ Ladder Safety
All right , today , ladder safety . Why are you yelling about it ? Because I'm excited . That's why Ladder safety .
Okay , you sound nice .
Today's episode ladder safety , Not inspections , not all the stuff you see everywhere else . We're talking about problems and solutions .
Yep end-user problems and how to fix them .
Yeah , so the first we have is problems Don't call . We got all kinds of problems with ladders and ladder safety .
What's interesting about that is it should be one of the simplest things . It's just a ladder .
You pick it up , you put it up , climb it , you're good to go , but we still have people falling off . Yes , why ? Because they get the wrong style oh , okay that's one of them . So we're going to do some categories here , but what first was problem ? So categories , wrong style yep another one , yeah , another one is too short , yep .
So like they go to grab one to go to eight foot , they get a six foot yeah , we end up on the top two steps or top one step , yeah absolutely aluminum .
I don't know why we still see wooden ones that are made , or we see well , wooden's a problem if you have any kind of food safety and then if you have aluminum , that kind of is weird for an mcc room .
If you don't have to work . Yeah , we want to avoid that all right .
Another one is staircase style the the rolling staircases . Yeah , we see . We're getting them to be safer , but yeah , but people it's like , do they need them , do they not ? When do they use them , or will they fit ? And then they so that whole concept of which . How do you select it ?
Well , I feel like part of the issue is also we don't . We can't use them everywhere . So it sounds like a great idea in theory , but they're really kind of cumbersome Most places we go .
you can't .
They're kind of cumbersome .
Yes .
You know , and they're difficult to steer and move around to get to where you need to go .
Yeah , another one is no spotter when we're using a ladder . Yeah , we had this a few days ago . We were at a location . They got to put up a ladder . No one's there when they climbing up or getting off of it . I've seen people kick the ladder and the ladder go to the ground . You see all kinds of weird stuff on videos about it .
Extension ladders , in particular Yep .
I'm with you . And another one is not define what three points of contact is . And why did I put that one last in this little group ?
Because that's the one everybody complains about , that's the one that serves the pot , that's the one everybody gets excited about .
So in our world , our solution is we don't require one hand to be on the ladder , and the reason we don't is because the daily work we see .
Well , I think that there's a difference between ascending and descending and the requirements around that , and I think there's a difference between in use and working .
So that's that one . So that's one category Problems . Another one inspections . Everyone does the formals , Everyone stores a beautiful Theoretically we're doing some kind of documented review of our ladders at some point . But what I worry about is during the day we're doing a 12-hour project , five-hour project .
You're pulling out , you use the ladder , you put it somewhere , you put it somewhere . You really inspect it when you take it place to place .
And it somewhere . Do you really inspect it when you take it place to place ? And that's where the damage occurs ? It doesn't get damaged being stored , yeah . So there's this weird thing if you pull the ladder down or away from wherever the storage location is to use it , we're we're not always the best doing a pre-use inspection .
Should we be theoretically absolutely . Does it always happen ? Not always I .
I use it at one o'clock . You got to use it too . We're . We're doing a project , so I'm not going to take it all the way back .
Yeah , I'm just going to put it over the side . Somewhere I had to scoot it over and I didn't realize I ripped a foot off when I did that .
Absolutely . That's a good one Feet missing and not even know what feet missing looks like , because everybody buys .
A lot of the locations we work in it's slick floors and it's wet , which is why we have different kinds of boots that we require and we do boot and tread inspections and things like that . So when you're climbing at elevation , that becomes more important , so it doesn't slip out from under you .
Now we don't have a spotter , maybe we're missing feet on the ladder . Things start to snowball , and that's how we run into problems .
No one ever checks the staircase or the brakes , so you get the rolling staircase and it's still a ladder . It's still inspection and it still has pieces that are supposed to keep it stable . It's supposed to have brakes .
People don't check that and you'll see people just start going to the staircase . Yeah , a lot of times they don't work . They go to try and use the brake and they can't get it to actually engage because it's rusted All right Category number three , when to stop because it could cause an injury . Yeah , Where's the end point ?
Yeah , so we're going to climb up on some rails and grab a four-foot ladder and it puts us over the rails .
Yeah , yeah , so we're already on a platform , but we need a ladder to get higher than where we are . That's right .
So there's guardrails . Put another rail up or move the ladder in the middle , so I mean there's ways to look at it .
Look at a tie-off situation at that point , yep .
Another one is climbing off the ladder . We had an episode .
Stepping off the ladder ?
Absolutely yeah , we had an episode about different things about harnesses and one of the things often people go to climb off of the ladder .
We don't always have a tie off point , or we don't always have the ladder itself tied off . So you go to step off , you kick it out from under you , you don't have a spotter Again things start to snowball on you .
Electric cords and hoses we have a lot of hoses .
All our plants have sanitation Things wrapped around your feet when you're working the ladder your feet , in between your feet , yep , and if somebody hits that cord or somebody grabs that , somebody pulls that hose real quick to get it out of the walkway or move it , or a few days ago we had a chain and we took the chains down and we started moving them and
somebody had a portable ladder and the chain was pulling on the portable ladder . And if they don't watch it , yeah , and it gets stuck and they pull it hard . They knock the whole ladder over with the person on it yep so that's another one , and the the tie-off makes you reach too far .
Yep , we're outside of the plane now . Now I'm having to lean outside the plane to click into a tie-off point . Well , that's not really the intent of what we're doing . We're tying off to be safer , correct , but we're putting ourselves in a bad situation trying to get to that safer point . So we have to start evaluating is the ladder in the right spot ?
Is the tie-off in the right spot ? When we start adding some of these processes , we've just got to really double check that we're not adding things to put ourselves in a worse situation absolutely
¶ Ladder Safety and Storage Solutions
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Another one in this category , when to stop is weather protocols . Yeah , I'd send him on our winds earlier this week in a project and we can't be using ladders during that time winds , lightning .
I would even say things like if we've got permanent ladders and we've got any kind of frost or ice buildup , absolutely especially . You know , obviously , that they would be outside in that moment .
So when I'm thinking of that , I'm thinking of we don't have any kind of grip on the , the round rung of the ladder sure or we haven't changed them out to the boot . They got everything on them yeah , we haven't changed them out to the flat styles , so that's that category .
Last category , storage . We're not talking about where you just store it and it looks pretty . We're talking about what if I'm 5'8 and it's a 15-foot ladder and I store it hanging all the way up on the wall and I got to pull it down .
That's almost training in a way to me . Yeah , because I got to pull that ladder down .
All that force is above my head . Yeah , because I got to pull that ladder down . All that force is above my head .
Yeah , we usually don't talk about in training . Hey , if you've got a ladder and it's this much taller than you are maybe you need to get a certain person for a 10-foot ladder , 8-foot ladder , whatever . Yeah , we never really have that discussion about how we're going to manage the height differences .
Another thing about storage is when they're leaned during the day .
It seems like everywhere you go during the day , there's storage , and then there's storage while we're working .
Yep , we don't call it that . We say no , it's in use . Well , no one's on or using it or moving around . Is it really in use ? We don't . They lean it on something that gets knocked over .
We went to break . That's correct , but we don't really on the walkways storage .
So we see a lot of them were elevated .
You'll see like ladder sideways on a catwalk yeah , and you gotta remember those mid rails are up there a little bit , yeah , so if you don't watch it , you can pick up that ladder , knock that ladder and it goes over the edge yeah , yep the other one is not secured , so when they pull one , they all come down yes , if you've got a whole bunch of different
ones and they're held all by one chain maybe you've got a variety of different sizes and styles all in the same storage you pull off the .
That was great ladder . Two six foot ladders in front of it . They're all coming down or they're all vertical .
They're not planted at all absolutely too many stored together yep so you got five and six and eight with one big chain yeah , I'm trying to dig in there and get the one that I need to do the job correctly , and they all come with it . Or I'm trying to move stuff around and they fall and hit somebody else or equipment or something , yep .
The wrong area for the job . That is a huge one to me .
Yeah , so we're storing the ladders in the location where there is wall space , not in the areas where we actually use them , but it's 150 yeah I wouldn't go to the barn .
I'll be like can this chair in these boxes make it ? I really got to go all the way up the barn yeah , three rooms away .
You got to wonder are we climbing on equipment and standing on that to do it ? Because it's a little easier . We go in three rooms to carry it back and then , slamming everything on everything , walk back yeah , and then the last thing is we're storage during the day for 12 hours of use .
Now we have the leaning , but we also had this random world where during because I just did a project a few days ago as we're doing projects these ladders show up everywhere during the day as they move they have their own life , yeah and I spent a lot of time saying can we barricade off the ladder area and just at least put them in that area so they're not
just everywhere , because we still got pits and truck traffic and loaders and people and platforms . There's still all this other stuff moving . You know you got a cable to a welder they're bringing around . All this stuff is still in motion .
Oh yeah , yeah , we've got cables and cords and extension cords .
Absolutely Running a grinder , the one we had a few days ago . They're doing some welding and they're grinding . Well , they've got every kind of cord going to that . Yeah , they got a lot going on and they're going up a ladder , but they keep a spare ladder in case they need something else .
But that ladder has its own life now of having its own injuries if you don't watch it .
Yep . So just as a really quick reminder , this is our opinion , take it how you want Still do a thorough risk assessment , because every situation is different . We understand that each industry has its own unique thing . Absolutely still do a risk in us . What still do a risk assessment at your facility absolutely so .
How do we ? What solutions for these ? How do we manage this ?
so the way I would manage these is first the problems , look at your individual operations , evaluate what out of that list you can realistically see . Maybe go out and do some observations Behavior-based observations would be my thing . I'd start with that and then take those and figure out as a management team how do we want to handle this .
We still have to do the process . We still have to , you know , put product at the door .
You can be part of your pre-planning for a project .
But you know , how are we going to manage these ? So yeah , pre-planning , doing any kind of elevated work , assessments are always helpful , and then in areas where you can look at engineering control . So can we put a tie off ? Can we put a ?
I don't want to use a ladder from key front .
Yeah , Can we put something permanent in place ? If this is a daily function , how can we manage that app ?
And then I would look at starting to write some of these things in terms of defining what three points of contact is , what you and your management team or your company maybe they've dictated that to you already what that's going to be for your corporation do a ladder storage evaluation .
We've done that before we walk around the plant and say where where are we using these ?
yeah , where can we put these and then yep , let's find a location within that room , immediate area . To make it simple , how can we make this process simple ? Maybe Maybe we have hooks instead of a chain , I mean you know .
But the other thing is is where are we putting the hook so that we're not lifting it up and then going backwards with the ladder , so doing an evaluation of , okay , what of this list do we have at our location , writing those kinds of fixes and solutions , or how you're going to manage that , either into your training , into a ladder program or , if you don't
have a separate ladder program , looking at writing that into an elevated work . You know things like how are we going to manage the previous inspections ? Are we documenting those , are we not ? How are we going to manage all of that out ?
I would look at using a safety program and the training piece as kind of the thing where you document all of those solutions .
A few years ago , we did nothing but try to figure out how not to use them yeah , so that's what you do every time you decide in a meeting , we need one . Your next thought ought to be how do we not use it ?
why is there another ?
solution you get out of all this yep .
Was there another solution where I can give them a platform instead of having them carry up a hose with one hand and now we're struggling , yeah even a host connection .
We've . We've done that , for we'll put the host connection up top Somewhere else so you just connect up there and not have to drag it up with you . Yep .
So how can you use engineering controls to ? If you have to use a ladder , a rolling staircase , some kind of elevated situation , how can we at least make the job easier ? Absolutely . Look at brainstorming with your engineering team . Let's get them involved , let's get the end user involved . I think that's always helpful .
They've got some really great ideas , especially our mechanics . They can come up with some really cool stuff . So I would involve them . And , you know , just just start slowly working through them , one at a time , one at a time .
Everyone you can eliminate is a win .
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