Exploring Industrial Supplies

As a painter or construction worker, scaffolds can allow you to scale buildings to complete work on upper levels. This enables more and more varied work, but scaffolds also bring with them the need to be smart, safe, and thoughtful during use. What specific scaffolding details must be considered by everyone you're working with?

1-Assessing Site

Your first decisions when using scaffolds should be made well before you select them. You must ensure the site is scaffold-ready and that there won't be any risk to you and the workers when on it. That means checking for bushes near the building and looking for wires and power lines near where you'll be working. Soil stability should also be evaluated by having samples tested. Some site work might need to happen before you can comfortably accept delivery of scaffolding.

2-Renting Appropriate Systems

Partnering with a rental company for scaffolding systems usually makes the most sense when you have nowhere to store them or don't need them often. Rental companies usually offer scaffolds in aluminum, fiberglass, and steel. You must know which scaffolding system is best.

Usually, if you need to stack heavy materials on scaffolds during work, steel scaffolds will be strong enough to handle them. However, because the steel itself is heavier than other scaffolding types, such a system will generally need more time to be set up. If you need rapid scaffold setup, you may opt for fiberglass or aluminum. Of course, if any electrical labor is planned, fiberglass is preferable because it is not as strong a conductor as metals are.

3-Checking and Respecting Maximum Load Warnings

Maximum load warnings are to be seriously considered. Stacking materials can be risky in the first place, as materials can interfere with people's ability to get around safely. However, when you overload the individual scaffolds, that could destabilize the entire system. For this reason, all workers must know and respect load warnings. Supervisors should always be looking for weight and obstruction issues.

4-Training and Monitoring Workers

Your own staff may be tremendously qualified. However, you or supervisors must be certain about workers' ability to be safe and effective on the scaffolds. You may hold small training sessions about protective gear or other scaffold-related issues before working with them. You should also have supervisors stand off the scaffolds to monitor how everyone is doing.

Renting scaffolds and other materials will require you to consider these issues. Rental company staffers work with these structures daily, so they can be a vast source of information; their guidance could be beneficial for your workers. Call a company like Savage Scaffold & Equipment Co. for more information.