PDA

View Full Version : H & S



Latte
17-11-2005, 09:20 PM
Hi Guys,

How are you lot getting on with H & S Requirements.

Its all to easy to stick to guidelines when you are in a nice warm building with access but how are you doing out on the road or in fields
I have been out of the loop on the reefer side for a couple of years now but surely you are not changing clutches or doing shaft seals on 05G's off a ladder:eek: ARE YOU:confused:

Regards

fatboy

Brian_UK
17-11-2005, 11:41 PM
Not, mobile myself Fatboy but recently found out that our firm has a maximum 30minutes on a pair of steps.

If the job requires more time than that then a scaffold is required - jeeeezzzzz

alpha
18-11-2005, 12:16 AM
Silly,silly,silly.

Latte
18-11-2005, 12:23 AM
I would like to see someone get a compressor out on a t-bird in 30mins let alone do the job.

Trailers arn't too much of a problem at the end of the day you could pull the compressor out and have it resting on the frame. This time of year what i hated was the early morning call to a four wheeler and having to climb onto a frozen cab roof to look at an MD/KDII (Now i am showing my age).

I was just interested to see whats been happening and what people are now doing or is it business as usual

Regards

Fatboy

Reeferjon
19-11-2005, 01:48 PM
You see that guy with his head in the sand....yeh...thats him, next to the grey area......ask him :eek:

Latte
19-11-2005, 02:28 PM
HI Guys,

Like most things, working at height's has so much regulation with it these days it's hard to know where you stand.

One company we do work for are #### hot on H&S and as far as they operate if you stand on a kerb you are officailly "working at height".

I have heard of all sorts of figures for having to operate above 6ft & 9ft. What are the regs does anyone know.

Trailers shouldn't be too much of a problem, except when you have to climb up to change as SMX top belt or maxima condenser fan belt.

I didn't know if anyone had made up special gantries for working on rigids (difficult i know if you work at various sites).

Don't worry, i am not going to grass anyone up under the health and safty at work act. Remeber i'm old and have been there laying on top of trailers.
Is there any legislation on the ladders that are fitted onto rigids. Some are what 10" wide and OK for getting up briefly to start a unit but almost impossible to use to take stuff up to work with

Regards

Fatboy

Argus
19-11-2005, 04:37 PM
I have a bee in my bonnet on this one through personal experience.

It's a serious consideration. There's the risk of injury to yourself or others, plus the legal jeopardy if you are to blame and deliberately ignored the rules.
Your insurance company is not bound to cover you if you are deliberately negligent. In other words, you are aware of the rules but chose to ignore them.


I should stress that these regulation are UK jurisdiction only, though the Health & Safety directive it mentions is EU wide.

Begin by reading this basic guide.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg401.pdf

Then refer to the regulations themselves.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20050735.htm


Most falls are accidental, many are avoidable and all of them cause pain.

If you need proper staging to do a job safely, then staging it must be.
________
vaporgenie vaporizer (http://vaporizers.net/vapor-genie)

US Iceman
19-11-2005, 05:46 PM
...you are aware of the rules but chose to ignore them.

We have something similar to this here in the US. It is called a willful violation. This is very serious territory if you decide to tread this path. Monetary penalties can really escalate if a firm is found to execute a willful violation.

Ignorance is one thing, completely disregarding regulations is another.

Does the UK or EU treat this the same way?

Abe
19-11-2005, 06:02 PM
Hi Guys,

How are you lot getting on with H & S Requirements.

Its all to easy to stick to guidelines when you are in a nice warm building with access but how are you doing out on the road or in fields

fatboy

So that all members can benefit from what the "rules" say,

I am posting Health and Safety Information under the Legal section.

Argus
20-11-2005, 02:26 PM
We have something similar to this here in the US. It is called a willful violation. This is very serious territory if you decide to tread this path. Monetary penalties can really escalate if a firm is found to execute a willful violation.

Ignorance is one thing, completely disregarding regulations is another.

Does the UK or EU treat this the same way?


Good morning US Iceman. Good to hear from you again.

I agree with you, ignorance of the law is never any defence, though due diligence even when things go wrong is a legal refuge in this country.

The penalties are never clear cut. At the top of the tree in the UK is Corporate Manslaughter (I think that manslaughter is equivalent to 3rd degree murder in the US?) where a corporate board or individual directors are held responsible and can be prosecuted. Fines can be huge, I mean huge by UK standards, and even imprisonment is an option.

This is quite recent legislation here and I do not think that it has yet resulted in a basis for prosecution.
The nearest it came to a case, the first one, was where negligence during track maintenance was alleged in a series of rail accidents in England a few years ago, but the result were some serious fines to the companies, no senior individuals from the rail company were prosecuted.

There is a case pending now, I see from this weeks H&V News, where the head of a local authority engineering department dispensed with Legionella dosing for some cooling equipment that resulted in 7 deaths from legionella a couple of years ago. That is coming to re-trial again next year. The individual was, I understand, convicted of a lesser charge of failing to observe the health and safety rules on Legionella, but the jury could not agree on a manslaughter conviction at the last trial.
(This is why, and you can see from previous posts on the subject, I am not enthusiastic about evaporative condensers in urban areas).

In the EU arena, penalties for the same type of breach rcan vary considerably from country to country. The general guidelines are that punishment should be ?proportionate? (whatever that means).
This is because the legal instruction from the European commission is top-down and starts with a directive that is simply an instruction to member states that specifies areas where the national laws are to be ?harmonised? ? i.e. made the same. After that national legislation is used to define in their own way, appropriate to their legal codes, what the offence is and what penalty it carries.

It all goes back to the original question from Richard about working at heights and the answer is, and always has been, that each individual is blessed with common sense that will guide him as to what is appropriate or to seek advice. The correct actions may not be convenient, quick or cheap but when someone is faced with injury there is no debate.

.
________
Mercury Voyager (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Mercury_Voyager)

Abe
20-11-2005, 05:03 PM
Argus

Is it possible you could give me the leggionella case name so I can study it

Thx

US Iceman
20-11-2005, 05:55 PM
Hi Argus,

Thanks for your insight and thoughts.

The willful violations really hit hard for OSHA and EPA. They are very serious about managing the hazardous chemicals and environmental impact. In one area of refrigerant releases ("*****" types in particular) several firms have had fines of +200K US$ for not managing refrigerant leaks from equipment.

OSHA is specifically about personnel protection, and the same category of wilful violations exist for this also. A willful violation will cost the firm about $32K US per day until rectified.

As it is recommended to proceed with "due diligence" in dealing with specific issues, if the authorities find you knew of a problem and did nothing, a person could be facing a change in scenery (concrete and bars).


This is why, and you can see from previous posts on the subject, I am not enthusiastic about evaporative condensers in urban areas

I believe a lot of this problem is due to the lack of adequate chemical dosing to minimize the "bugs". We use a lot of water cooling towers for HVAC projects, and almost every ammonia system has an evaporative condenser.

Chemical treatment for evaporative devices is entirely dependent upon the firm managing the treatment system. Unfortunately, the evaporative devices are almost always "out of sight" and therefore seemingly forgotten.

I posted some links about this in another thread for evaporative condensers. Interestingly enough, most of the information I found about Legionella came from UK websites.


The general guidelines are that punishment should be “proportionate” ...

This sounds a lot like "an eye for an eye".


The correct actions may not be convenient, quick or cheap but when someone is faced with injury there is no debate

Exactly right. When someone is hurt or death is a result of a workplace injury, it is impossible to defend a case by saving money, or stating it was too expensive to comply.

Argus
20-11-2005, 08:59 PM
Argus

Is it possible you could give me the leggionella case name so I can study it

Thx


Aiyub, I will gladly help. The Legionella case I was talking about is the Barrow-in-Furness leisure centre outbreak a couple of years ago. Following the deaths of 7 people, the outbreak was traced to the local leisure centre where ?savings? had been made in the dosing regime. The local authority and one of its employees were prosecuted. The employee is awaiting a re-trial on the manslaughter charge next year. There?s a piece on it in the H&V news this week, plus the BBC and local press in the North East has reported on the case. It has been going on for some time so the information that is in the public domain is free to quote, though we have to be careful about the re-trial as it is due to take place next year and is obviously sub-judice.

There have been other outbreaks in other areas, Cardiff had one recently, plus it is mandatory for all commercial and residential hot water system to operate in excess of 60 degrees and to be regularly checked. There will be other members who know more about this part, I am sure, as I am not an expert on hot water systems.

There have been other instances of outbreaks and they are all too frequent and regular in the UK. There is an SI on the subject of operating cooling towers, No: 1992 / 2225.

The HSE have a records database section on their web site that allows you to search successful prosecutions by them.
________
penny stocks to buy (http://pennystockpicks.net/)

Abe
20-11-2005, 09:14 PM
Argus

Thank you, Ill have a look later this week

mick2me
08-01-2008, 02:11 PM
Argus

Thank you, Ill have a look later this week

Did you get a chance to have a look then?

Came across this thread whilst researching legionella.

I am a Trained Health & Safety Rep, and am currently looking at the posibility of Legionella in Hydroponics growing systems. Nothing to do with Refrigeration I am afraid.

However the Barrow case in the UK is an interesting landmark. I am not sure of and would be interested in finding out the defences in this case which lead to the equital of the defendant. It may of course have been good old plea bargaining, if they pleaded guilty to the lesser charge?

Since this case many organisations (including county councils) in the uk, are preparing Risk Assessments for Legionella. This is in fact a requirement in UK law for any foreseeable hazard.

INMO. this case is now so well known that, any future occurrances leading to manslaugher charges, would be very difficult for the defendants to refute.

Risk Assesments, and the possibility of falling foul of criminal law, do not just apply to Legionella of course

The best advice that I can give a small business is,
If you have union members, allow one time off to train on the union H&S rep courses Stage 1 and Stage 2 are both 11 week 1 day per week courses.

These courses give insight into the core legislation, and their requirements, as well as more remote and recent legislation, on another subject mentioned here, 'Working at heights'

You will find this much cheaper than employing consultants.:rolleyes:

clivemtk
09-01-2008, 11:06 PM
hi abe can you tell me if the dates are right on these posts and why do they suddenly appear in transport section

Brian_UK
10-01-2008, 12:42 AM
hi abe can you tell me if the dates are right on these posts and why do they suddenly appear in transport sectionI know that I'm not Abe, but which posts are you referring too.

The dates are all correct and the thread is in the Transport section because the first post was relating to H&S issues within the transport field.

absolute-zero
10-01-2008, 06:27 AM
Hi Guys,

How are you lot getting on with H & S Requirements.

Its all to easy to stick to guidelines when you are in a nice warm building with access but how are you doing out on the road or in fields
I have been out of the loop on the reefer side for a couple of years now but surely you are not changing clutches or doing shaft seals on 05G's off a ladder:eek: ARE YOU:confused:

Regards

fatboy

I need a ladder to do those types of jobs, I was born with a disability which will not allow me to remove the compressor from floor level when mounted on trailer. Its Called 5'9.

But seriously The compressor is not really that heavy so its not a big deal to pull one out in an hr off a ladder.

I always found the TK screw compressors to be a liitle bit awkward to remove, but still not a weight issue for me off the ladder.

I have worked off scaffolds before, but still easir to grab a 6 foot A1 folding ladder, then try to move a scaffold or set up to service the unit.

I do have some customers that the unit is mounted low enough where you can lower the landing legs a few inches and service the conmpressor from the ground.

Osha here does have strict labor laws here as far scaffolding ladders, hazardouse communication programs, shop emergency evaccuation plan, eye wash stations, lock out tag out , respirators.

However if employess reported a unsafe issue to labor board here, a representive of osha would come to the facility and check only the issues that were complained about, nothing more. They would walk by a ladder that was all busted up, but will not citate you for it if ladder if was not part of the complaint.

At least this is what i have witnessed a few times over the years.

A-Z