How To Keep OSHA Off Your Back: The Best Ways To Secure A Construction Site

No matter what your thoughts are on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), you have to follow their safety guidelines.

If you don’t, you can expect delays.

We’re not here to talk politics.  We’re here to tell you how to keep your workers safe.

Construction is a dangerous line of work.  We all know that.

Every year, thousands of people are injured or killed on construction sites.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), construction has the most fatal injuries of any industry.  It’s more dangerous than an episode of the Deadliest Catch or Ice Road Truckers.

To help prevent accidents, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has strict guidelines to keep people safe.

To help you stay within these guidelines, we’ve listed some helpful ways to keep your construction site safe.  By following the tips below, you’ll keep your workers safe and keep OSHA off your back, preventing any major delays.

Use Fencing

This is a standard of any construction site.  Good fencing keeps people out of your construction site.  It also protects valuable building materials and tools.

Did you know that more than $4 billion worth of money is lost from construction sites every single year?  That’s according to the National Association of Home Builders.  A good fence will keep things safe.

Here are places you should fence on your construction site:

• The perimeter
• Areas where things may fall or collapse
• Steep hills and inclines

Remember, a fence is your first line of defense in keeping your construction site separated from the outside world.

Remember the Safety Nets

If debris and building materials have the potential to fall from high places, you’re going to need safety nets.  There are various types of netting that you can use to secure your construction site.  These include:

• Standard Netting: This type of netting is wrapped around the building to help prevent objects as well as people from falling.

• Pole Netting: This is netting that is extended out using poles or wires.  It’s a lot like a sail on a ship.  This is a great way to protect people on the ground from falling objects.

• Netting For Workers: As an added safety measure, include netting in areas where workers have the potential to slip or fall from high places.

Using these types of nets will help keep your construction site safe.  This is especially important considering falls account for half of all construction related injuries and death, according to the BLS.

Require Harnesses

For construction workers in high areas, you’ll also want to be sure that they’re wearing safety harnesses.  This will help protect them from major falls.

When using safety harnesses, be sure your workers know how to properly use the harness.  It’s also important that they know how to attach it to a secure area.

Post Signage

This is perhaps one of the most overlooked safety precautions that can get you in trouble with OSHA.

You want to make sure that you have proper signage to warn about potential accidents and injuries.  To be safe, you may also want to get custom signs to alert workers about less dangerous hazards.

Install Remote Security Cameras

Finally, you’ll want to make sure that you have security cameras on site.  This helps to protect against theft and vandalism.  It also helps to keep your construction site safe afterhours.

A good security camera is a deterrent to teenagers and vandals, who may be considering sneaking onto the site.

Now a days, you can get security cameras, which work remotely.  No wires are necessary.  Sensors can turn on a camera and tell a monitoring station whether or not someone is sneaking onto a construction site.

In fact, remote security cameras helped the city of Detroit catch more than 60 criminals in six weeks on several construction sites.  You can learn more by reading this remote security camera case study.

Summary

At the end of the day, we all want the same thing.  We want the project to be done on time and we want everyone to return home safely to their families.

By following the tips above, you’ll keep your workers safe and you’ll stay in line with OSHA.

At Hue & Cry Security Systems, we offer the best construction site security services in Northern California and Oregon.  We also are one of the only dealers of Videofied, one of the premiere security camera systems for construction sites.

Give us a call at 1-800-762-3196 and see why more contractors trust us for their construction security needs than anyone else.  You also can contact us on our website.