Health and safety paperwork for steel fixing and structural steel 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.

Falls during erection and connecting

The connector works at the top of a column before anything is there to attach to. Perimeter protection installed from the ground where possible, static lines and anchors designed for the load, and a sequence that does not rely on a person free-climbing a member.

Crane and lifting operations

The load, the slinging, the dogger's signals, the exclusion zone and the ground the crane is set up on. Loads landed by hand, tag lines, and no one under a suspended load at any point in the lift.

Falling objects and tools

Bolts, spud wrenches and offcuts from height onto the crew below. Tethered tools, containment at the deck edge and a hard exclusion zone under the erection face.

Projecting starter bars

Vertical reinforcing left projecting is an impalement hazard and the reason caps exist. It is also a trip and eye hazard at waist height in a congested mat.

Manual handling of bar and mesh

Reinforcing is heavy, springy and handled in a bent posture over a mat with no flat footing. Mesh sheets catch wind. Tying is thousands of repeated wrist movements a day.

Welding fume and hot work

Welding fume is treated as carcinogenic, and fume from coated or galvanised steel adds metal fume fever and worse. Local extraction or on-gun extraction, respiratory protection, and the fume kept out of the helmet rather than only away from the room. Hot work also means fire: a permit, a watch and the combustibles cleared below as well as around.

Arc radiation, sparks and grinding

Arc eye for the welder and for the person who walked past, sparks into a stairwell, and grinding discs used on the wrong material or past their rating.

Mobile plant and overhead lines

Telehandlers and trucks delivering long bundles into a congested site, and a crane jib or a length of steel raised near conductors with minimum approach distances that are not negotiable.

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 in Employment Regulations 1995, reg 26, for falls of 5 m or more and certain lifting operations
• Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017, for shielding and fuel gases and their storage
• Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, regs 24 and 25 for raised and falling objects, and regs 28 to 31 for airborne contaminants

Competence and licensing

Crane operation requires a certificate of competence for the class of crane, and slinging and directing loads is a competence in its own right rather than something the nearest person does. Structural welding to a specified standard requires a qualified welder and a qualified procedure, and the fabrication may sit under a structural steel fabricator certification scheme where the project specifies one. Hot work needs a permit system, and respiratory protection against fume must be face fit tested.

Notifying WorkSafe

Construction work where a person could fall 5 m or more requires 24 hours' notice to WorkSafe, which steel erection reaches routinely. Certain lifting operations are separately notifiable. The full list and its exclusions are in notifiable work: the 10 categories.

What a main contractor will ask you for

• Your contribution to the site plan, or your own if you hold the head contract
• An erection sequence, and the engineering behind any temporary stability or propping
• A Task Analysis for each task: reinforcing placement, erection and connecting, bolting, welding, lifting
• Lift plans for the crane work, with crane operator and dogger competence
• Welding procedures and welder qualifications where the welding is structural
• Fume control and face fit test records for respirator users
• Sign-on sheets against each document

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 Steel Fixing & Structural Steel 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 in Employment Regulations 1995, reg 26, for falls of 5 m or more and certain lifting operations
• Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017, for shielding and fuel gases and their storage
• Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, regs 24 and 25 for raised and falling objects, and regs 28 to 31 for airborne contaminants
• 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.