Masonry Magazine August 2012 Page. 34
MAST CLIMBERS
The end user must ensure their employees are competent and not rely on whom they may be renting the scaffolding from. This is a clear regulation that it's the responsibility of the end user. If you're not sure, you better make sure, since it may cost you more than what profit margins are in today's world of more cost and less profits. That's one of the reasons why mast climbers are so popular; they increase production and lower labor, but they also come with responsibility.
The second way is to ensure your equipment is up to standards. This should be done before job site delivery. If your equipment is not up to par, then it's not worth the risk. It should not be taken for granted that even if you're renting equipment, it's all up to par. Mistakes do happen, and things change rapidly on job sites. Equipment may work one day and need repair the next, or the ground when you base the unit is stable one day and may become unstable later during a ground shift. That's why it's important to make sure the competent person on site makes their daily inspection, and if something isn't right, put the mast climber out of order and then handle getting it right before any work happens on that particular unit.
Equipment access is an important consideration as well. This falls differently for each type of mast climber you may be using, but what doesn't change is what OSHA/ANSI says about how you handle it. You must never be in a fall potential without having the appropriate safety supplies in place. More people get hurt, or even killed, because of a lack of fall protection. If you're in a potential fall, you must have the appropriate fall protection on and be tied off in a way that meets or exceeds OSHA's requirements. This will serve you well in the long run. One example includes accessing the mast climber when moving planks, either on the outriggers or when bypassing the wall ties.
We should be planning on training before it becomes a jobsite issue. Someone could get hurt, or a site could be slowed down, because of inefficiencies of mast climber use. As mast climbers become even more popular and needed in the construction industry, training will become even more of a priority. If it isn't, you can expect more accidents and more litigation. This, in turn, creates a smaller margin in an even more increasingly tight-margin workplace. But, with a little effort on everyone's part, things can be better all around. IMAS
Michael Solomon is national sales manager for TNT Equipment/Premier Scaffold Solutions.
Masonry access that lets you outperform.
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