How Can You Protect Others When Working on the Outside of Your Building?
Posted on: 6 October 2020
When you are responsible for a large commercial building in a busy city centre environment, you may face some additional challenges if you need to carry out work on the exterior. In this case, you may have to erect scaffolding all the way around the structure and will certainly need to make sure that you protect others when work gets underway. What types of safeguard can you put in place from the outset?
Pedestrian Tunnels
In a typically congested area, you may be required to keep pedestrian pavements open around the exterior of your building while this work is ongoing. This can certainly be an additional challenge, but you should talk with your scaffolding company to see if they can create a tunnel or covered walkway of some kind. This will help to protect any pedestrians beneath as they will be completely enclosed as they pass by. This approach has many different benefits in addition to the more obvious, and it will help to keep dust and other byproducts of construction at bay.
Safety Netting
You will also need to install netting around the building, just in case. If a worker was to drop a tool or other item, then it would probably be caught within the net and would not impact anyone or anything below. If they were to drop something that was particularly expensive, then it would likely protect that item as well so that it could be retrieved and used again instead of being written off.
All-Round Protection
Sometimes it may be easier to envelop the entire structure in special shrinkwrap or a custom-made tarpaulin. This is relatively easy to do these days, and it can certainly keep debris, errant tools and other byproducts within the job site. Properly attached materials can also help to protect the structure from inclement weather. This will be especially important if you need to replace some of your windows or have to remove cladding as part of the work.
Early Planning Is Essential
Remember, however, that the safeguards mentioned here will determine how the scaffolding is built in the first place. You cannot simply add them on as an afterthought once everything has been laid out. Consequently, always talk this through with your scaffolding experts from day one. They will then know how to proceed and can help you to reduce your exposure, while protecting your project, budget and reputation as much as possible.
Reach out to professionals who provide commercial scaffolding services.
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