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Working from a specific height off the ground, it’s important to prioritize fall protection. Luckily, these days, it’s not that difficult to find the equipment you need to make sure that you put safety first in your workplace or at home. Also when you’re doing chores up on the roof of your home, fall protection is always handy. If you’re shopping for safety equipment for doing work at elevated places, here’s everything you need to know.
Fall Protection: Categories of Equipment
You might have fall protection equipment like the safety harness but really, there’s more to it than that. You’re looking at things like anchors, retractable, lanyards, lifeline systems and all sorts of roofing kits. You should also add things like hard hats, guardrails, reflective gear and many other pieces of equipment to your list. For the most part, the other things sound like additional expenses or just accessories. But as you can imagine, you never know when it’s just a small warning line that can save your life or the life of one of your employees.
Basic Fall Protection Equipment
One of the most basic things that you need to have in terms of fall protection equipment is the harness or restraint.
This comes in different types and they’re categorized by class.
- For Class One harnesses, these pertain to the body belts.
You’re going to use this to keep an individual restrained when he’s working at elevated spots like the roof.
- With Class Two equipment, chest harnesses fall into this category.
If there’s no hazard for vertical free falls in your work area, these make the best protective gear.
- In Class Three, these are the full body harnesses.
These are designed to keep people safe from the most severe of free falls.
- Lastly, Class Four is the suspension belt.
This works as a support for a person working from a height that needs to be suspended on the edge of the roof for example.
Fall Protection: Things to Look For
If you’re in the market to buy a fall protection harness, you need to look at a few things on the piece of equipment. First off, there’s the back D ring. If you get a harness without this, it will not do anything for you. Look for buckles on fall protection gear. Make sure that you get a harness with quality buckles. You can choose from buckles that are pass through, tongue buckles or quick connect buckles. Padding is also essential to fall protection harnesses. Even if you don’t work long hours on the roof or on high places, the padding will ensure your comfort at the same time the whole of the harness is making sure of your safety.
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Indeed, fall protection is essential. Working from even a few feet off the ground like when you’re cleaning your roof or doing some repairs on it, you need to put your safety first. And that can be handled simply by wearing a fall protection gear.
— Marissa Olson writes for Snug Harness. More on working on roofs, please see our category – Roofing. For more on strategies and using fall protection systems, OSHA provides tons of useful resources. For homeowners, here is additional information from a site called Simplified Safety – Fall Protection for the Homeowner. ~jb
All images courtesy of Snug Harness.