Health and safety paperwork for concreting crews

The hazards that actually matter

Every trade has a long list and a short one. The short one is what the task documents have to deal with properly, because it is where the serious harm comes from.

Wet concrete contact

Wet concrete is strongly alkaline. Prolonged skin contact causes chemical burns that develop over hours, often first noticed at the end of the day, and kneeling in it through saturated trousers is the classic mechanism.

Respirable crystalline silica

Cutting, grinding, scabbling and dry sweeping all generate it. On-tool water or extraction first, then respiratory protection with a face fit that has been tested.

Concrete pumping

Line blockage and sudden release, boom movement, outrigger ground failure, and the hose whip at the end of a blocked line. The set-up area has to carry the load of a fully extended boom.

Formwork and falsework

A collapse during a pour is a crush event with people underneath. Design, propping, bracing and the inspection before the pour are the controls, and the inspection is the one skipped under time pressure.

Falls into excavations and voids

Pours happen next to open ground, penetrations and edges, often with people walking backwards screeding.

Power float and screed

Rotating equipment, noise and vibration, on a surface being worked while still green.

Plant movement and deliveries

Truck and pump arrivals on a timetable set by the concrete, not by the site.

What applies beyond the general duties

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and the General Risk and Workplace Management Regulations 2016 apply to every business. These sit on top of them for this trade:

• Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, including the duty to monitor exposure where required
• Building Act 2004, where the work is structural and restricted
• Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017, for release agents, curing compounds and admixtures

Competence and licensing

Concrete pump operation and placing boom work require specific operator competence. Where the concrete element is restricted building work on a house, the foundations licence class applies.

Notifying WorkSafe

Excavation deeper than 1.5 m and deeper than it is wide requires 24 hours' notice, which catches footings and pits more often than crews expect. The full list and its exclusions are in notifiable work: the 10 categories.

What a main contractor will ask you for

• A Task Analysis for the pour, for pump set-up and for cutting and grinding
• Formwork and falsework design and the pre-pour inspection record
• Silica controls, including on-tool extraction and face fit testing records
• Safety data sheets for release agents and curing compounds
• Plant and pump pre-start records

A document per task, not one for the job. The crew doing one task should not have to read past three others to find their controls, and a site manager checking one task should not have to either.

Where to start

If you are writing from scratch, how to write a Task Analysis sets out the order. If you have been asked for something and are not sure which document it is, which document do you need covers the difference between a site plan and a task document. Our prepared documents for this trade are the Concreting Task Analysis Pack, or single documents from the catalogue.

Sources

• Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, s22 (reasonably practicable), s34 and s36
• Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, regs 5 to 8
• Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995, reg 26 (particular hazardous work requiring notice)
• Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, including the duty to monitor exposure where required
• Building Act 2004, where the work is structural and restricted
• Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017, for release agents, curing compounds and admixtures
• WorkSafe New Zealand, Identifying, assessing and managing work risks

This guide is general information about New Zealand health and safety law as at the review date. It is not legal advice and it does not describe your site. Confirm what applies to you with WorkSafe New Zealand or your adviser.