First floor the new apprentice fitted pretty much by him self Helping me ply out a floor today ready for some Ted todd engineered next Saturday Starts the Bwfa apprenticeship course on Monday so should be able to teach me a thing or two in the near future!
Looks good merit, I am sure your lad will do well, it's a pity I have had to cancel my apprentices course on Monday, he was all booked in and hotel paid for, unforturnettly we had a little challenge with the funding so we will have to put him on another one, maybe next year after he finishes his textile course,
So citb call me Thursday to let me know they are coming out Monday to do some sort of health and safety check. Gotta show them all insurance certificates, method statements risk Assesments, accident book! Just got a email tonight from the customer saying the stairs hasn't been put in so we have to get in to the room (which is a conversion above a double garage) by ladder!!!! How's that going to go down? Matty could be ringshanking sheets of ply by hand with gloves, goggles and hard hat on tomorrow.....could be a late one!!!
Dont worry mate, the chap from CITB is there to guild you and get you working as you should be. Better him giving you guidance than you working away somewhere and H+S turning up and shutting you down. Use him to your advantage. Ask him questions you are unsure about. Ask him to show you guidence on writting risk assessments etc. His job is to help you as well as the apprentice.
By law you should have a accident book.Its nothing complicated, just a book which you record accidents in. It protects you and also keeps a log for you to see where you can improve safety before a bigger accident happens. For floorlayers the risks are low. If you was installing roofs then we are in a different league. For example you might have a few accidents where a ladder has slipped. If the accident book records these accidents you as a employee can see if you need to do something to reduce accidents (this is where a risk report and a method statement comes in as i will explain in a moment) So going back to the ladder has slipped as above- Risk assessment, a risk assessment is a form that you should have that tells people that there is a risk of the ladder slipping. You put in writing that the ladder may slip or someone might fall etc. Method statement - a method statement is something you write to tell people how you will reduce risks and how you should use something like a ladder. So in the case of using the ladder you have already created a 'risk assessment' telling the person that the risk is they could fall or the ladder can slip. So we now need to tell that person how to use a ladder safely. So your statement will say something like - the ladder should be installed at the correct angle, the ladder should be a minimum of 6m from power lines etc. For floorlaying we should have them for the tools we use. So a hammer for example ! what is the 'risk' of injury using one and how/what 'method' do we use to swing one? do we hold it with our teeth or our hand? Some say H_S gone made. Personally i agree when it come to a hammer but ladders? if you have never used before then you could easy have a accident. I think there was 14 deaths last year with thousands of injury's. Hence a risk assessment and a method statement to tell people using them.
Agree about the ladders, I was asked to use these ladders when i went to do the measure, in the dark too! If they are set up ok I don't mind bt I've been on a few measures where I've refused to use the ladder as they look like a death trap.
We worked for Bp recently, and if there were any recorded incidents in that accident book, you could not even tender for the job. 100% accident free zone. What a joke, what trade is accident free. Then we were told we had to use retractable knives. Accident waiting to happen. NO ONE was encouraged to write anything in that book !
It was just a sprinkle of sarcasm Sir Mat. Im a man with only half a thumb due to floor laying so know the risks.
We had the same with Wates Contruction , they had a blanket policy that all knives are retractable, I argued the case, and said that all my guys are trained to always put there knives in cases, I proved that the pressure we use on a retractable was more dangerous, so I did risk and method statement how to use the knives and they couldn't do anything about it, I can understand why they do it for general trades, as the majority of trades walk around with an open blade, and also a lot of accidents are caused by cutting their hands into bags without the knives covered or retracted, The way that I argued it was to say that just because they are retractable, you still have to pull the blade in, so if you can train someone to do that, you can train them to put it in its cover when not in use, Blanket statements regarding H&S drive me mad, I personally think H&S should be job and trade related,common sense should apply, my method and risk assessment would be different from a ground worker, having to wear a hard hat in a finished area with nobody working above you dosen't make sense! Apart from wearing gloves which I resisted originally, but now the guys don't start without then, it's amazing how they stop those little grazes, skin taken off the knuckles, splinters, that sort of thing. Things that you take for granted. Obviously they don't stop cuts with a knife, not even the Kevlar ones, we do give apprentices a chain mail glove when leaning, especially if they are special, but training them how to hold the knife/blade helps reduce cuts, Sometimes you have to hold your ground and prove that you know better, knives are our lively hood and our main tool, They wouldn't ask a Chippey to use a retractable saw because they know a chippy always protects his blade with a cover, well so do we!