Masonry Magazine June 1997 Page. 7
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Monsters, Myths & Masonry
It seems an atheist went fishing in Scotland at Loch Ness where the alleged monster dwelled. After fishing for several hours in the middle of the lake, the water started to ripple, then large waves started rolling across his boat. All of a sudden his boat was cast into the air and the atheist looked down in horror at this infamous beast with its mouth open ready to consume both man and boat. "Lord save me, save me Lord!", he exclaimed.
At that moment everything came to a complete stop as if in suspended animation. Then a voice was heard to say "I thought you didn't believe in me." The atheist thought and then answered "Don't push me Lord, I didn't believe in monsters until a couple of seconds ago."
We as mason contractors are faced by many monsters in our daily business life. Many of our business pitfalls can be overcome with a little planning for the future. With all of the resources available to you, your Mason Contractor Association of America can be that guiding light in making those difficult decisions in establishing your business goals and objectives.
That monster did rear its ugly head just recently, when two respectable engineers pointed out in "MASONRY CONSTRUCTION" Magazine that the industry is faced with two most serious problems. They are "safety" and "education."
Mr. Grimm's article was very critical of OSHA regulations and ANSI standards for bracing walls: "are woefully inadequate," and of us (the MCAA) for its lack of sufficient guidelines for bracing of masonry walls. For everyone's information, your MCAA along with the IMI gave testimony before the D.O.L. during the public comment period. I personally gave testimony as to the implementation and the usage of the Limited Access Zone (LAZ). The OSHA regulation (1926.706) that was published thereafter, used most of our input but unfortunately it included "adequately" braced. This then added to a great deal of confusion for contractors, bracing manufacturers and design engineers.
Bracing for masonry walls is a very critical and complex issue. One that your MCAA and OSHA have been increasingly more involved. After recently completing a wall bracing workshop at our EXPO Conference in Phoenix, MCAA formed a task force with OSHA's involvement to address safety measures that can be implemented.
Over 20 people, representatives from all disciplines in the masonry industry, met in Chicago on March 24, 1997 to discuss and see what is needed to take the confusion out of this issue.
I presented the needs for bracing:
1 Safety for workers/public/property.
2 Compliance (It's the law.)
3 Insure the integrity of the design strength of the wall.
4 Eliminate lost time due to collapse, additional cost and insure good public relations.
Along with goals and objectives:
1 Establish and publish industry recommendations.
2 Develop guidelines (Tech notes).
3 Standards through (ACI, TMS, ASCE) and eventually a national consensus standard (ANSI).
4 A wall bracing manual (design and applications).
To achieve these goals an action plan was developed to address criteria; such as load, maximum height before bracing, minimum strength, safety factor, design methodology, etc.
Once masonry wall bracing criteria have been established, the task group will move to establish recommended guidelines/standards.
In the meantime, we as mason contractors (the ultimate responsible party) have a legal and moral duty to comply with OSHA regulations. Contractors who fail to consider safety in their business plan have no place in our industry and do a disservice to themselves and to the rest of the mason con-