An estimated 1.6 million Americans are employed in the construction industry, half of which work in residential construction. Each year, roughly 38,000 construction injuries are reported, with some 21,000 involving days away from work. Many OSHA standards apply to residential construction for the prevention of possible fatalities. This page provides information about those standards, and the hazards present in residential construction. It was developed in cooperation with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) as part of the OSHA-NAHB Alliance.
I have to say that it sounds like they're getting pretty serious about residential work. A friend of mine in MT just told me about a job he was on - the roofer got a $20,000 fine for fall protection and some other miscellaneous stuff. Pretty hard to recover from $20k on a $2500 job.
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Build MT - Your Community Informed
Is construction the only business where people are trying to work for free?
-David Meiland
We live in a rural county in Maryland, which has a wonderful lake. Our rural county has became a haven for vacationers, and the building boom here is crazy. There are so many houses being built no one, expect for OSHA can keep track of. Three years ago they came on one of our jobs. Our foreman was made aware two weeks prior to have temp handrails across all windows, he did not. OSHA fined us almost $3,000.00 for this. But OSHA will work with you on these fines. Since we were a relativly new company, they cut us a break. The OSHA rep recommended that the purchase of some new safety equipment, etc.. would show we were serious about safety, and it would make a good impression. So we went out and purchased new safety harnessess, walk boards, etc., spend about $1,500.00, and OSHA knocked the fine down to $500.00. Which I thought was pretty nice of them, at lease $1,500.00 went to useful safety gear instead of a fine, that's money well spent!
Do a google search on how many OSHA inspectors there are and how many commercial sites they can get to in a year. OSHA simply can't handle taking on residential. They only time they show up is if a serious accident or death occurs.
Not true. Especially when commercial building is having down periods, OSHA will start showing up at residential sites quite often.
When I was working as a sub, we ran into OSHA at least once a month (we did a minumum of a house a day wiring, usually two or more). We were also working on houses for very large builders, Centex, for example.
I doubt that OSHA bothers too much with smaller outfits.
In fiscal year 2003, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted 39,817 worksite inspections, up 5.9 percent from FY 2002, OSHA Administrator John Henshaw announced Nov. 18 at a briefing to highlight Labor Department enforcement statistics.
I too have heard that OSHA is getting serious about checking in on residential stuff.
Once several years ago I worked for a fencing company building a fence around a prison. We made this bench to attach to the truck for hanging razor wire. well, Osha showed up and asked about it after taking one of the owners business cards. He then very kindly gave us 5 min. to completely destroy that thing or else. We never worked that hard before or after.
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Osha wanted to fine my mom after my father was killed from falling off a roof. They said he should have had fall protection. He was on a flat roof, about 16' up to give an estimate on its replacement. Roofing is about to get a hell of a lot more expensive if we have to put up handrails and use harnesses in order to inspect a roof to give an estimate.
Can you imagine an Osha rep telling a woman that just lost her husband that she, as the only remaining officer of his company, might get up to a $20k fine?? Then he let her sleep on that for 2 days before it was decided it would be a bad publicity move to do that....
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\"You will never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.\"-Irish proverb
rgramjet, Personally it shouldnt matter how expensive it gets, safety is first, most everyone knows, it the very most important thing.. Yes it gets old when people talk and talk about it, but the reason they do is to get it into peoples minds so the next time someone get above 6' ( my company tolerance) its in the back of thier mind, do I really need to tie off, ill just be there for a second or two. The answer should be yes...if handrails and fall arrest systems have to be put into play so a father can come home to his wife and kids, than thats whats gonna have to happen, I approve it.
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Always have a reference point....
As difficult as it can be sometimes - we follow the same rules Tykster - safety first, then quality, then production. Our main goals are, as you said, go home safe, make our customers happy, and do it efficiently and profitably for the company.. in that order.
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Build MT - Your Community Informed
Is construction the only business where people are trying to work for free?
-David Meiland
I Would Like To See More Inspections In The Residential Are We Are Involved In Mostly Commercial And Institutional Work And It Seems To Me Most Contractors Are Aware Of The Problems And Hazards And Try To Fix Them But Osha Seems To Get There First Because They Known That's Where The Money Is. Residential Builders Get Away With A Lot More. Also They Need To Put More Emphasis On Penalizing The Employee When They Don't Comply With Company Policy. We Use A Union Workforce And Most Employee Don't Care If You Let Them Go Because They Just Go To Work For Somebody Else.
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