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Person BTEC HND in Construction & the Build Environment - Quantity Surveying

Slide 2

First you have to understand the key thing to this presentation. Safety is the state of being safe;
freedom from danger, risk, or injury.

Everyone have their own responsibilities and loved ones. So it is important to think of your own
safety. Accidents can may happen any time. When the accident happens, the resulting suffering
of the injured workers and their and their families is difficult to quantity in economic terms.

So it is important to manage the health and safety in our working area.

Slide 3

When talking about safety it is very important to understand the difference and connectivity
between Hazards and Risks.

The basic difference is that hazard is something that will cause harm, while a risk is the
possibility that a hazard may cause harm.

The simple relationship between these two is that you have to have exposure to a hazard to
experience a risk.

As a company if we are intend to focus on our people’s safety then we are looking for
hazards/risks in our company, sites we are simply looking for the things that could heart our
people. No big debate about hazards vs risks. Is that machinery going to heart someone? Is lifting
heavy things all day going to cause some strain?

It doesn’t matter if it is a risk or hazard, if it could hurt someone or damage things then we
should do something about it.

Slide 4

For example let’s take a ladder. Ladder is a hazard because there is a risk of falling off the ladder
when climbing it.

Slide 5

Many think taking safety precautions is rubbish and money wasting thing. So it is important to
understand why safety is needed.

• To reduce cost as if any accident occurs then it will increase indirect cost of the project.

 Indirect / Hidden cost

 Workers compensation cost.

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 Replacement and training cost for new or substitute

employee.

 Penalties of non-compliance

 Poor Quality

• Improve employee morale and satisfaction.

• Project runs on schedule as if any accidents takes place it affects the work site and
projects may be delayed, therefore safety also takes care of time.

• Productivity will increase.

• There is an adverse effect on a contractor’s reputation and unfavorable image for the
client when the project suffers high accident rates ; Therefore Company’s reputation will
be better.

• To fulfill statutory requirements formulated by central government against construction

safety.

Slide 6

When discussing about health and safety there are regulations for Health and safety.

Following are some data I collected on health and safety regulations.

HASAWA

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HASAWA)

This act includes the duties of employers. Employers must protect the Health, Safety and
Welfare at work of their employees, as well as others on their premises, including casual
workers, the self employed, clients, visitors, and the general public.

As a brief overview, the HASAWA requires that workplace provide,

• Adequate training of staff to ensure health and safety procedures are understood
and adhered to

• Adequate welfare provisions for staff at work

• A safe working environment that is properly maintained and where operations

within it are conducted safely

• Suitable provision of relevant information, instruction and supervision

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CDM regulations

The Construction Design & Management Regulations

This covers the management of health, safety and welfare when carrying out construction
projects

CDM will show path for health & safety in a construction work by helping us to,

• Sensibly Plan the work so the risks involved are managed from start to finish.

• Have right people for the right job at the right time.

• Cooperate & Coordinate your work with others.

• Have the right information about the risks and hoe they are being managed.

• Consult and engage with workers about the risks and how they are being
managed.

PUWER regulations

Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations.

In this the regulations deal with the work equipment and machinery used every day in workplace
and aims to keep people safe wherever equipment and machinery is used at work.

Manual Handling Regulations

The Manual Handling Regulations shows as an Employer, You have to protect your employees
from the risk of injury through manual handling tasks in workplace.

It will also be useful to employees and their representatives.

These regulations were developed to help your organization the number of Musculoskeletal
Disorders, associated with manual Handling.

The Regulations require employers to;

• Avoid the need for hazardous manual handling, so far as is reasonably

practicable;

• Assess the risks of injury from any hazardous manual handling that can’t be
avoided; and

• Reduce the risks of injury from hazardous manual handling, so far as is

reasonably practicable.

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PPE Regulations

Personal Protective Equipment Regulations.

PPE is equipment that will protect the user against health or safety risks at work. It can include
items such as safety helmets, gloves, eye protection, ear protection, high visibility clothing,
safety footwear, thermal, weather and waterproof clothing, and safety harnesses. It also includes
respiratory protective Equipment.

As an employer, it is important that to understand our responsibilities and take steps to keep your
workers and members of the public safe.

We need to know the PPE we need to provide and what training we need to provide to
employees to ensure that they use it correctly.

The Employees need to understand their responsibilities for the use, storage and maintenance of
their own PPE.

Slide 7

Keep everything in suitable places

When storing accumulated materials that cause tripping, fires, or explosions, or that may
contribute to the harboring of rats and other pets, they should be stored in suitable places.

Not obstruct any passageway

This means the storage materials should not be kept on passageways in the site.

Stacked and stored in such manner to ensure stability.

This means that storage materials should be kept nicely packed and they should be easily procure
when needed.

Floor or platform shall not exceed its safety capacity.

When storing the storing floor or platform should not exceed its safety capacity. If not it will take
time to find what we want and because of the excess the materials on heights could fall on.

Slide 8

Use proper PPE.

When handling equipment if it seems like there is a risk, we should do something to avoid or
minimize that risk. At First it is good to wear suitable personal protective equipment when
handling tools.

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For a example if someone works with a welding machine he must wear gloves, safety cloths and
eye protective.

Keep all tools in good condition

All the tools have to be in a good condition with proper maintenance. It is more safe if you
examine each tool for damage before use and do not use damaged tools.

Use right tools for the job.

There are many tools in the construction industry for various purposes. When using the worker
have to be advised or inspected about the purposes of those tools and for hat type of thing they
are use to.

Operate tools according to manufactures’ instructions.

Many tools comes with a user manual. So it would be more safe if you operate those tools
according to manufactures’ instructions.

Slide 9

Use proper PPE.

When using materials sometimes those materials can be harmful for our health. So it is better to
use Safety equipments.

For an example if we use cement, the cement dust can cause eye problems, heart problems etc.
So to minimize that effect we can use safety equipment like eye protective, respirators etc.

Unused materials shall be segregated in storage.

Use materials in right quantities.

Materials should not be over used or less used. They should be used in right quantities. If not the
construction may fail. This may cause many serious damages.

Slide 10

Risk assessment can be done in many ways. In here I am going to talk about 6 steps process to
undertake a risk assessment.

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Slide 11

When assessing the Risk, first we should identify the hazards and risky activities. In construction
sites we have so many hazards. So we can identify them one by one and it will be easy to do the
management process. Identify the risks of those hazards is like the foundation of risk
management.

For an example in a construction site heights is a hazard and falling from heights is a risk.

So in this step engineers and safety officers can do safety audits and discussions to identify those
hazards and risks.

Slide 12

Once risks have been identified, they must be assessed as to their potential severity of loss and
probability of occurrence. Then we need to determine how to control the risk in the best way.

Slide 13

Urgent action is required for risks assessed as critical or high risks.

There are various methods of controlling risks. Sometimes two or more methods of the following
will be applied to a single risk.

 Elimination of hazard.

 Substitute of hazard.

 Isolation of hazard.

 Engineering controls.

 Provide PPE

 Administrative controls. (including training and education)

Slide 14

Whichever method was taken of controlling the hazards, it is essential to do an evaluation of its
impact. It is important to ensure that the risk is minimized and no new hazards are created.

And also check for new updates of the controlling methods because previously selected
security controls are now may not applicable and effective.

Slide 15

In the next three slides I’m going to show some examples for risk management.

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Slide 16

Falling Object

Here the hazard is working with equipments and materials on upper floors. And the risk is
falling of materials and equipments on labors.

In many constructions where there are many floors this can be happen. If workers work on
edges of upper floors; equipments, materials could fall accidently. So in such sites labors on
down must weir safety helmets, safety shoes. In these kinds of construction sites a temporary
net or roof is constructed around the building .So if something falls from heights it will not fall
on to labors.

And also the labors who work on edges of upper floors should weir safety belts.

Slide 17

Fall during lifting operation

In high storied building projects cranes are use for lifting operations. When lifting if the
materials are not well attached they can fall down. For example if we use crane to lift 100 steel
bars and the rods are not well bounded there is a risk of falling down of steel bars and fall on to
labors. This might happen when there is no proper communication among the crane operator
and the supervisors. So in here to minimize the risk the package should be well bounded and
the labors should advised to stay away from lifting area when lifting operations going on. And
a proper communication should be maintained among crane operator and supervisors.

Slide 18

Working on Heights

This hazard can be seen in many sites. Labors careless about safety when working on heights.
But if work on heights labor must weir proper ppe and their should be a well fixed scaffolding.
Normally in Sri Lanka in small projects contractors did not provide scaffoldings because of the
cost.

Slide 19

From all the above slides I have explained to you about How we can control the hazards.

My goal of explaining those things to you is to prevent our workers from being exposed to
occupational hazards.

Slide 20

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Electrical hazard is one of the dangerous hazard that can be seen in construction industry. Let’s
see what are the Electrical hazards that we can see in sites and risk controlling methods.

Slide 21

Electrical Hazards

This is an dangerous hazard that can make death in seconds. So in our construction sites it is very
important to understand these hazards and manage those.

1. Poor wiring and defective electric wires.

• Damaged electric appliances.

• Overheated wires or cords

• Cracked wire insulation caused by heat, corrosion or bending.

• Loose or improper connections, such as electrical outlets and switches

2. Outlets close to water

As water conducts electricity, keeping outlets and wire codes away from water reduces the
chance of electric shock.

1. Wet hands.

2. Pouring water on electrical wires.

3. Extension cords.

4. Overhead powerlines.

5. Overloaded Circuits

Slide 22

When working with electricity the risk is high because electricity can be cause serious injuries.

Here are some main risks of Electrical Hazards

• Electrocution (Death due to electrical shock)

• Electrical shock

Received when current passes through the body.

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Severity of the shock depends on:

 Amount of current flowing through the body.

 Length of time the body is in the circuit.

• Electrical Burns

This is the most common shock related, nonfatal injury.

This can be occurs when you touch electrical wiring or equipment that is improperly used or
maintained.

• Falls

Electric shocks can also cause indirect or secondary injuries. That means the workers in elevated
locations who experience a shock can fall and resulting in serious injury or death.

Slide 23

It is useless to make safety precautions after some damage happened so it is better to do safety
controls before damages happen.

Here are some steps we can take to control the risks I have mentioned on the slide before.

• Inspect electrical equipment before use.

• Automatic shutting off electricity.

• Don’t remove ground prongs from tools or extension cords.

• Don’t use tools in wet conditions.

• Remove damaged tools from use.

• Use gloves and appropriate footwear.

• Train workers working with electric equipment in safe work practices.

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