Site safety is a crucial part of any self-build project. Below are some points that should make you think about your own self-build site, and exactly how safe it currently is. For more information visit the HSE website
- Think carefully about letting your children visit the site. If one gets hurt it is an irresponsible disregard of safety legislation.
- Wear protective footwear. Wellies and boots with steel toecaps are readily available.
- Wear a hard hat!
- Buy two or three pairs of cheap plastic goggles and always use them with grinding tools etc. The alternative is likely to be half a day wasted in a hospital's outpatient department which you would have preferred to have spent on the site.
- Ensure you follow the instructions when using hire tools. Do not take off protective guards etc.
- If you have no experience of erecting scaffolding, order it on a hire and erect basis. Make sure that the rails and kicking boards that the law requires are provided. If your sub-contractors want to erect the scaffold make sure they do so according to the correct procedures.
- Keep petrol for mixers etc. in a locked hut.
- Use a R.C.D. contact breaker with electric power tools, whether using a site supply, a cable from a neighbour or a generator.
- If trenches are more than a metre deep treat them with respect and ensure proper shoring is employed. Never work in a deep trench alone on site.
- Crane off-loaded brick and block packs should only be stacked two high and restacked by hand if in any way unstable.
- Concrete burns are a self-build speciality. Bad ones can leave the bone visible and require skin grafts. Never let concrete or mortar stay down wellies or in shoes for longer than a couple of minutes. DO NOT LET SMALL CHILDREN PLAY WITH MORTAR AND CONCRETE. If you get cement dust in your eyes wash them immediately with plenty of clean water for at least 15 minutes and seek medical advice without delay.
- There are still old type wooden ladders about without a wire under each rung, often owned by self-builders. The only place for them is on a bonfire. Travis Perkins branches can provide the correct ladder for your project.
- Do not get involved with work on a roof unless you are well used to heights and positively like it. If you are uneasy up there you will not be able to do anything properly anyway.
- Self-builders regularly fall down stair wells. Use scrap timber to form a rough balustrade until you fix the real one.
- Be obsessive about clearing away any loose boards or noggins with a nail sticking out of them, and in case you miss one, never wear shoes with a thin sole on the site.
- Keep antiseptic and plasters on site.
- Watch your back both when lifting a very heavy item or if unloading more weight than you normally handle in a day. The professionals can unload and stack 16 tons of building blocks by hand with plenty of complaints but no injuries. If you try it, the complaints will be of a different sort when you get out of bed the next morning.
