Intro Speaker:

Dave & Bacon's Safety Tales The only industrial safety podcast that brings you commonsense advice on job site safety, standards, regulations, and industry best practices, without putting you to sleep.

Fred:

Welcome to Dave & Bacon's Safety Tales, the only safety related podcast guaranteed not to put you to sleep.

Dave:

Maybe not guaranteed.

Fred:

Well, we're going to do a loose guarantee. We're not liable. We're not liable for any of this, but it's Fred Rapunzel and Dave White here with Quad City Safety. We are on all your social media platforms. You can reach out to Dave and I. We're both on LinkedIn. I'm also on Twitter at QCSafetyFred. Dave's not quite on Twitter yet so we'll see if we can get him on there someday, but otherwise he'll just-

Dave:

Don't think I'm gonna Tweet. You can fax me though.

Fred:

Not gonna Tweet. Fax. How about throw out that fax number if you will.

Dave:

It's 563-445-2171.

Fred:

Alright. So today the topic of the day is walking, working surfaces and what you need to know. So Dave, why don't you give us a little story to get us started [inaudible 00:01:17] geek.

Dave:

You know, back in the day I was a stripper.

Fred:

I had heard that.

Dave:

Yep. That's actually true statement.

Fred:

You talking about paint? Paint stripping?

Dave:

More towards floor. So basically I spent-

Fred:

I stepped on your joke there.

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. You kinda did, but you know, a man can dream. So with that said... So I would have been, I don't know, late teens, 17, 18, 19 years old and worked for a company and basically we stripped floors and I'll tell you what, when you put ammonia, straight ammonia down on a wax floor then try to walk on it, that is not a walking, working surface.

 Dave:

I mean, it is a surface that you will definitely fall and bust your ass on cause basically the ammonia breaks down that wax and it is a complete skating rink until you come back and kind of, you get your little orbital sweepers there sitting there going back and forth with steel wool and it breaks all that up and then you pick it up and then you can actually walk on it and throw the wax down, but tearing that wax up was one of those things that we did that there was really no good way to plan around it other than to try to not walk on it and somehow you would always end up on the wrong side of things and have to walk through it and it was a long night when you would literally fall and get sopping wet and ... See the wax would already release so once you hit you were almost like sopping wet with ammonia, just that smell, but then you had loose wax so it looked like somebody had hocked a lougee, like a major sized five pound lougee across you and you'd walk around with that stuff all night.

Fred:

Stuck to ya?

Dave:

Yeah. So it was one that, when I start thinking about walking, working surfaces, one of the main things to really always think about is coefficient friction would be a good way to put it from safety nerd speak, which is coefficient friction basically deals with the fact that, just like sand paper, so when it hits something it's going to grip. So that's kind of my backwards story to kind of feed into the whole walking, working surfaces. Walking, working surfaces.

Fred:

Did I ever tell you the story about when I was a ball boy for the semipro basketball team that we had with the Quad Cities? For the Thunder. My dad was the general manger of the Quad City Thunder...

Dave:

Right on.

Fred:

...and I was a ball boy. So that periodically, besides being like the player's bitch to go get them a candy bar or run upstairs and get them a hot dog and do that, you got to rebound for the players.

Dave:

You got some Class C NBA flunkies.

Fred:

Yep. Well, this was like guys would get call up to the NBA. So this was more like a guy didn't quite get drafted into the NBA and then he would go...

Dave:

So it wasn't completely like...

Fred:

Like Jimmy King was on the team. So he was a Fab Five member but he wasn't like Jay Larose, he wasn't Chris Weber, wasn't Dywane Howard.

Dave:

He was like the fifth of the Fab Five.

Fred:

I think he was the fourth guy, but the fifth guy was also in the CBA. He was also in the thing. So I was rebounding, I believe for Jimmy King, and anyways, he shoots one up, bounces off the rim, I go sprinting after it, and the guy had just mopped the floor right there. So I got jotting after it and I sprint for the ball, hit this wet spot, and my legs do the complete splits. The complete splits, my body cocks to one side and I snap my femur in half. So my femur just snaps. So at that time, if it would have been like a year sooner, I would have been in a full body cast, but they had just developed like putting metal rods inside the bone, which I'm assuming they still use now. So a metal rod went inside my femur, a couple screws, nine months later I was good to go, but anyways...

Dave:

Do you go off in metal... Like, we were flying today, did you...

Fred:

No, its not there. They took it out.

Dave:

Oh, so it didn't stay there.

Fred:

Yep, nope. They took it out like another eight or nine months later. So it was like basketball season I hurt it, football season I got to be a little bit better but couldn't play football, and then by the next basketball season I was ready to go again, and so that was in there, but that was my working surface that day that was a little slick. So I took a nice spill. So anyways, why don't we explain what a walking, working surface is.

Dave:

Well working surfaces are obviously anything that we're kind of, you know, moving around on, but also we have changes in elevation as changing floors so when we're talking about a walking work surface some of the edges... There can be a leading edge, there could be a hole in the floor. So there's a lot of... Part of it is just the floor and how we maintain it and try to keep it safe. Making sure that there not a lot of debris around, making sure that there's not oils, food oils, anything that can cause it to be slick to happen, but that's where sometimes this walking work surfaces... OSHA refers to and just recently redid some of the changes within the standard is it's probably not the best labeling for it in that it's not intuitive to some of the other stuff that it has to deal with whether it's the scaffolding, whether it's ladders, [inaudible 00:07:02] items, anchorage testing and stuff that's kind of encapsulated in some of those revisions.

Fred:

Okay. So that's pretty much the revision?

Dave:

Well the walking work surfaces revision just happened. Some of them, like, you know those traditional, those ladders, I call them cheese grater ladders where you have the ladder with kind of a cage around it so that basically, I'm not gonna get it exactly right off the top of my head, but above 25-26 feet, traditionally, if a ladder was going to be above that, you kind of had to have that cage around it and now they're trying to work away from the cages into, do we have some type of ladder climbing system? Whether it's use of an SRL or it can be actually like a... There's manufactures out there like DBI has one of the ones that's been around for a while that are like in wind towers and stuff called the lad safe. So it's actually a cable that goes kind of up the middle of the ladder and then when you're climbing you would have a device on your chest that kind of hooks into there so you're going up.

 Dave:

Or the other thing that I mentioned is having a SRL that we pull that tag line down, hook into our dorsal B, and then we're able to climb safely up there because anybody that they kind of over time figured out that when people fell in those ladder systems is once you fell you got tangled up into it and it'd kind of chew you up and break bones and kind of spit you out the end. I mean, it really wasn't kind of a true fall protection type, you know? As much as... When you look at a ladder that's the biggest misconception that people don't understand is, safety on a ladder requires three points of contact. So when we talk about those three points of contact, it is physically feet and hands, I guess, technically, from a balancing standpoint, you could argue that using the torso to some degree, but usually unless you're in certain situations that's not going to happen. So if you're climbing, trying to carry something, you're not going to be complying with that three points of contact.

Fred:

Okay. To that point, people can't just ignore it for the next 15 years and then all of a sudden you start approaching that, you're going to have quite the cost that are going to show up if you don't start planning for it now.

Dave:

Oh yeah. I mean, you can look at... I mean, it's hundreds of dollars per individual ladder system.

Fred:

And then it says stairway workers who may be exposed to unprotected sider edges within the four feet or more fall potential must be protected by guardrails or a stair rail system.

Dave:

That's just firming it up is all it is.

Fred:

Is it? Has that always been the case in a stairwell? I guess if there's an unprotected side and you're four feet up you're still going to be under fall protections.

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

Well I mean it's going towards a passive system.

Fred:

Some of this other stuff that lists on here, I guess I always assumed that already was the standard.

Dave:

Well some of it's, how to say, it's just firming up some of it and some of it is mid district and you still have those variances between 1910 and 1926 that exist but one of them that is in here is that people are really not... When we're talking about permanent anchorage is there is kind of verbiage in there that they need to be inspected but it actually says certify and there's not a lot of ways to, when you sit there and talk about certifying an anchor point, is you have certified and none certified. Majority of the anchor points that exist out there today are non certified. So they hit that 5,000 pound threshold requirement.

Fred:

So to be certified [inaudible 00:11:33] you've just got to have the paperwork behind it? Or is it you need to state it?

Dave:

Well to be a certified anchor point, yes. You would have to have an engineer kind of go, this is what the sub straight is and here's the fastener that's put in it and pursue it to my magical mathematical equation that I work out. Yes, it will support twice the intended load. Versus a non certified, which is most of the anchor points out there. When we talk about a non certified anchor point is gonna be that a standard anchor point that you buy from just about every fall protection manufacturer out there then self install it to get that 5,000 pound threshold.

Fred:

Okay. How about-

Dave:

But you have to, but again, certification is... So if you have something that's put in there and you don't really ... have never had a structural engineer to look at anything and sign off on anything, there is a device out there called the Veri5000 that you can do a test to see if it would actually sustain that, or withhold, that 5,000 pounds and then be able to certify that anchor point based on that caveat.

Fred:

I've heard people talking a little bit more, like in regards to scaffolding, and kind of what are the... I don't know. I see scaffolding listed on this thing. So I know that's something that's come up that the, maybe the standards have changed a little bit in regards to that? Or not really?

Dave:

Well how to say.

Fred:

Cause I don't even know what the rules are working on scaffolding.

Dave:

Scaffolding's a tricky one to me is you know, how high they can be, who constructed them, do you have like parts from one manufacturer to the other? That's one that, to be honest with you, I'm not the most well versed on.

Fred:

Okay. How about any opinion on, kind of, paying attention on some of these areas? Cause I would think that this is kind of a category that people really could pinch pennies, versus making these super large investments on some of this equipment.

Dave:

When you sit there and look at the ladder systems and stuff, some of it can just be utilized in SRLs because if we have... Let's say we're utilizing a ladder system on a building and it's something that we're up there like once a year. Well we still have that first man up clause. So somebody could actually, if we were gonna have some people up doing stuff on a roof and we had to climb that ladder, you'd theoretically could utilize that SRL for each person to climb. First person climb's first man up and then everybody else uses that SRL and then kind of, theoretically, go around installing a ladder system for every single ladder that you may have on a building.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

So there's things like that, but you know, again, there's no cheap things and the best way to do it is to kind of plan for it but make sure that you're looking at... The frequency would probably be the driver of expenditure.

Fred:

Okay. So maybe the song, the best things in life are free but you can leave them to the birds and bees?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

Right? Did you want to touch on the permanent anchor systems? Or the certified anchor points?

Dave:

Well one of the things that's in there that it kind of talks about anchor systems and certification is, you've got non certified and certified anchor points. Your certified anchor points is something where you've gone in and done your due diligence to make sure that you figure out, okay, I know what the sub straight is, I know what I'm installing it and how I'm installing it, and I know that I'm gonna limit fall arresting forces to X, and then I put my safety factor in and an engineer kind of signs of on that.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

So you can have some level of certification there, but you have a lot of anchor points out there that are really non certified. So you really haven't had a structural engineer or somebody that has that level of expertise to come in there and sign off on it. Every construction site and most general industry applications, when you look at anchor point, nobody's really evaluated or pull test them, and there are devices out there now, like the Veri5000 is one that exists, where people can actually load test, or apply, a dynamic weight amount to a anchor point to see if it actually does what it's suppose to do and therefore it'll certify that anchor point, but there is kind of a provision that those need to be done on an annual basis that exists and again, how to... We try to inspect everything and make sure that we test it. So it's something that should be kind of added to the... If we're annually looking at, whether it's our body wear or our horizontal lifelines, or whatever, we have that competent person inspecting it. Anchor points also need some level or diligence and are often kind of overlooked after they're installed. Nobody kind of goes back and looks at them.

Fred:

Is all of this kind of across all standards? Or is this mostly for general industry that they put this? Cause I know they talk about construction and then-

Dave:

Loosely it's there but again, I'll go back to the whole general duty clause is, any time that there's a best practice that's out there, it should be incorporated if you're in that type of hazard.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

Typically, in a construction environment, they're not gonna site you under 1910, but going under that whole general duty clause... how to say... something, a behavior that causes an accident that becomes... that they show up and do a report on, there doesn't have to be just a specific standard that they site you on. They can just say, again, going back to the logic that we said, is that if you speed through the-

Fred:

Like hey dick, you knew better.

Dave:

Yeah. You should have. I mean, this is common sense level shit you should have known. Everybody, when they feel unsafe, or they see somebody doing unsafe behavior, or let's say they see something they don't think it's rigged right, they should stop work immediately, and there's some job sites that have that. Where anybody on the job site can blow the whistle and everybody must stop and come out and evaluate. That's not a bad thing. That means everybody's eyes are on safety. It doesn't become, well it's not my job, the safety manager will come out and tell me.

Fred:

Right. That's a thing that you hear so much about it, but that's a culture.

Dave:

Yep. That's behavioral based safety.

Fred:

Yeah, that's a culture thing. That somebody feels like, I might be costing the company some money here because I have to delay this job for whatever reason, but I'm gonna go home to my family today and if someone's got a problem with that, you don't want to work for that company most likely anyways.

Dave:

Yeah, they're assholes.

Fred:

Right?

Dave:

I mean who would want to wake up and do that? As long as you paint your 400 foot of building a day, who gives a shit how you get it done.

Fred:

Sam's Club red. You've got the whole bucket, you're ready to rock.

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

Davy needs his hash browns.

Dave:

Yeah. Davy like hash browns.

Fred:

So let's comb through the big email box this week. I'm gonna ask you a couple questions here. Number one. Can leading edge retractables be used in non leading edge applications?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

That's pretty much a simple answer, right?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

The differentiation between a leading edge and not, it's just better for some applications. So you might have to look at fall clearance or there might be some applications where you wouldn't use the same equipment.

Dave:

You're usually looking at extended free fall.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

Again, it's getting to you're trying to limit fall arresting forces.

Fred:

Okay. I know sometimes I'll get... The main reason why I think this question came up was they're looking at costs. They're like, well, I have to spend this extra money to get this leading edge certified retractable, am I gonna be able to use that in other applications that aren't leading edge because I don't want to have to buy two.

Dave:

Yeah. In most cases SRLs are designed to lock up anyway. So if it's a leading edge SRL they're doing similar things, it's just calculating the fact that you're gonna have free fall and if you have free fall, making sure that, again, going back to limiting those fall rushing forces within [inaudible 00:20:40].

Fred:

Okay. Number two. When should I wear a metatarsal boot versus wearing a regular steel boot?

Dave:

Well, again, that's kind of the judgment call of the employer or whoever's wearing them, but typically if we're around material that is moving or can roll, those are situations where you're gonna want maybe a little bit more of a metatarsal. Drop hazards where... When you really look at it, theoretically, the better way to go is going to be metatarsals.

Fred:

Okay maybe, before we even go further into that, just depends, I don't know who all's listening to this, but maybe explain what a metatarsal is? I know when I first got into safety that's something I really didn't know.

Dave:

Okay. Well a steel cap is really, we'll call it toe protection. So that steel toe is ... it's a cap and it can be steel, it can be made of different materials, even down to plastic. So composite type plastics, fiberglasses. So it is meant to, again, keep ... if something drops, from crushing toes or potentially, basically damaging your toes. Your digits down there. Toes are kind of important. Without them you can't really stand up or walk.

Fred:

I guess I don't understand why-

Dave:

Versus a metatarsal is covering, when you get into the foot, right past the toes, there's bones called the metatarsal bones. So there's, I believe there's four metatarsal bones that, if something hits those, you can break those also. So it gives you that extended coverage further back. Versus a steel toe is really, is typically gonna handle your toes, but if something hits a little bit further back you can actually fracture those metatarsal bones.

Fred:

So what is like a... You mentioned like something rolling. So what's like an application where you wouldn't need metatarsal protection?

Dave:

Again, it's gonna be a judgment call. There's no magic recipe.

Fred:

Cause I'm like, how can I be like that can only hit my toes. That can hit-

Dave:

Sometimes people, historically, didn't like metatarsals because some of the newer technologies that are out there are more playable or they bend better. Before, it was literally like you had a steel toe and then you had a plate. Basically, outside of the tongue of the shoe there was a big metal piece that kind of folded over the top.

Fred:

Yeah. It was like a metal piece of pizza sitting on top of your foot.

Dave:

Yeah, and then gen two they kind of padded it a little bit, and then gen three was, they went with, they'd call it like an armadillo. So it was plates so that it would kind of bend a little bit. Then gen four they got into some of these space age....

Fred:

Material but it's super thin and you'd hit it with a hammer and it [crosstalk 00:24:01].

Dave:

And it gets hard. You know? So there's all kinds of technology that have gone into it to where now, you can have something that's rated as metatarsal that's still pretty pliable and it's not as hard to wear, but there's not really a magic recipe. It's you just kind of gotta figure out what you're doing and where you've got that potential drop.

Fred:

Yeah. That makes sense. Alright. How about number three here. What are your thoughts on requiring employees to wear FR, flame retardant, underwear. Got any thoughts on that? Whether it's ... I've seen bras, I've seen panties, I've seen briefs, long underwear.

Dave:

Well heres the whole thing, is if you're gonna put somebody in FR clothing, you have identified that, well, there's a chance that they're going to be around a fire.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

And when you talk about whether it's a flash fire, so 2112, or an electrical arc, or a flash under 70E, there's a shit load of heat that we're talking about, and- Bless you!

Fred:

I tried to get away from it but I couldn't.

Dave:

So the amount of heat that's produced, obviously, a lot of times, consumes the material that you have on. When you look at 2112, if the garment does what it's suppose to, it's supposed to just limit body burn to less than 50%.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

So if you have a garment on under that that can be consumed by fire, it's not self extinguishing, I would not wanna have like my under armor poly drawers on and then experience one of those cataclysmic events and then have a shrink wrap around my...

Fred:

Basted into your nuts.

Dave:

Yes. I mean, that's just... So, I mean, your undergarments, you've just gotta watch what you're wearing, you know? They're saying a lot of times now is you want to have something that's arc rated or is specifically for it because historically they said a lot of us wear, you know, a cotton garment and they're starting to say, as they look at the test data, that's not necessarily the best. Cotton can still ignite.

Fred:

Alright. Well that goes through the mailbox there. Until next week with that. So now we're gonna go on to a word from our sponsors. Hey Dave? If you have a gluten allergy and you're at work dealing with bloating? Diarrhea? Constipation? Abdominal pain? Headaches? Or feeling just tired and you're following your diet, did you ever think it could be your PPE?

Dave:

Could be.

Fred:

You ever heard it? Well we've got a solution for ya! Bacon's gluten free PPE! Fall protection? We've got it. Hand protection? Got it. Head protection? Got it. Now what I want you to do is I want you to try taking your regular PPE out of service for two to three weeks and just replace it with our all natural, gluten free PPE. It'll make a major change with your tummy troubles. Bacon's gluten free PPE. Protect your insides while protecting your outsides. Dave and Bacon Safety Tales is not liable for the validity of this product.

Dave:

If it sounds too good to be true guys, it probably is.

Fred:

Alright, well that's it for us today. We may make light of safety topics we discuses here, but we're just trying to raise awareness about the simple, often overlooked, real life safety issues that have had devastating consequences to hard working guys and gals for far too long. If we can make some of the confusing and misinterpretations surrounding safety regulations even a little bit more sensible to one person, then our time here is well spent. So thank guys, once again, for putting up with us, all of our technical difficulties as we figure out what the hell we're doing. We really like hearing what you have to say so leave us some comments, ask some questions. We may even answer them on the show. Jump into our Quad City Safety social media conversations, whether it's commenting on a blog post, we're on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and just get involved. So once again, safety has no quitting time. Until next time. Thanks guys.

Intro Speaker:

Thanks for listening in to Dave and Bacon's Safety Tales. Brought to you by Quad City Safety. Send us your questions on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, at Quad City Safety, #safetytales. Or email them to Fred at quadcitysafety.com. He's the guy keeping this mess of a show in line and if you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes. It's a kick ass way to show that you care about safety.