Health and Safety in the Property Industry
1stAssociated can provide help and advice with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, independent valuations, property surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, home buyers reports or any other property matters. As you can see from this article we use lots of sketches and photos in our reports as the feedback we have from our clients is that the sketches and photos help them understand the reports.
We, of course, like to meet you at the property during the survey and we are more than happy to talk to you about the reports. Please free phone 0800 298 5424 for a friendly chat with one of our surveyors.
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Fiddler on the roof!
These pictures were taken early one Sunday morning in Norfolk when we were on our way to look at another project (yes we did say Sunday). The repair being carried out is cement pointing of a flashing. It could be argued that it should be lead work anyhow; lead work would make a far better job of sealing the chimney on the roof.
However, in this case it was to our amazement as we watched the bricklayer climb a ladder, then a crawler ladder and reverse on the ridge carrying a bucket of mortar. For those of you who have never carried a bucket of mortar it is relatively heavy. They proceeded to hang on to the chimney by the base of it. Whilst the house was single storey it was still a fair drop. The owner did manage to save the relatively small amount of money by not having a scaffold put up around the chimney!
Does health and safety equal poor workmanship?
It does make you wonder what sort of quality work they are carrying out if they are working on a Sunday without scaffolding.
Who would have thought painting windows could be this dangerous
The second example takes us to London, where a red brick building was having some general maintenance carried out and we found painters and carpenters hanging off the windows; both of them quite happy to stand on the window ledge, three storeys up and paint the windows, with far greater reliance in the strength of a window sill than we have! It doesn't bear thinking about what would happen if they slipped, not being on the first floor or the second floor but being on the third floor.
Even the smallest of jobs may need a risk assessment
We hope our examples show that even the smallest of jobs can be made dangerous and that if you were a person in charge of the maintenance, even if the work doesn't require a health and safety plan under the Construction Design and Management Regulations (CDM) you may require a risk assessment under the Health and Safety At Work etc Act 1974, or indeed you may require a risk assessment for your own piece of mind and to ensure the safety of the people that you employ.
What is a risk assessment?
A risk assessment is fairly simple. There isn't a standard format, as far as we are aware. We spoke to a registered MaPS surveyor who advised that they require a statement of what you are doing and thoughtful appraisal of this with the protection of safety measures that you are putting in place.
An example of this would be with chimney repairs, where it could have been that the property would have been scaffolded to gain proper access (incidentally, we would also recommend a lead flashing rather than a cement flashing, as in the long term a cement flashing will become brittle, crack and allow water in).
With regard to the windows, if this is the only work that is being carried out on the property then it may be that you use a cherry picker or similar lifting device, or possibly even a tower scaffolding with stabilisers at that height, although the phone in the photo may be a step too high, and we certainly wouldn't have been keen working off of it.
