Posted By Chris Knagg
Setting the scene

Bales of hay are stacked by hand from the floor to the eves in one bay of a large pitched roof agricultural steel framed building. The hay stack is supported on three sides by the building structure and the bales are stacked by bonding the layers to key them in and prevent collapse. The sides of the building is yorkshire boarded. That means there are small gaps between the vertical boards for ventilation. You can not fall from hieght on three sides of the stack. The side which faces into the building you can fall from.

Custom and practice is such that when hay is required for feeding the animals, the farm staff climb a ladder and reduce the stack layer by layer to ensure the stack remains stable dropping the bales to the floor as required on a daily basis during the winter months.

Risk
There is a risk that someone can fall from hieght and there is a risk that someone could be hit by the bales of hay as they are dropped to the ground.

Question

What is the safest most reasonable and practical cos effective solution to this problem?

Your opinions, advice and comments are welcome

Posted By Chris Knagg
Frank,

You have hit the nail on the head.

1) The (young) EHO (not HSE) inspector has challenged the work activity on the basis of the application of WAH at this farm and is minded to place a prohibition notice on the activity. This places immediate difficulties in feeding the animals which then puts the farm in breach of animal welfare legislation! And yes I don't think he understands the activity in this context

2) This activity is undertaken on thousands of farms in the UK

3) I am not disputing the application of the law and indeed it is recognised that there is a benefit inmaking the improvements.

4) The dificulty is what is a reasonable, practical and affordable solution to the problem?

Long term the farm is considering moving to mechanical handling, but they sell hay to others and the small bales are an important revenue stream so they need to store the traditional size bales whilst their own use bales can be high density and mechanically handled but they need to make an investment to get the equipment to do this in the future.

The building is a traditional steel portal frame multi purpose storage barn and cattle shed which is lees than 3 years old. It needs to be a flexible space and so having some permanent edge protection system, whilst possible, needs to be adaptable and flexible and this has its own attributable risks in the erection, adjustment and dismanting of such a system.

I have thought about fall arrest systems too but the challenge here is where do you secure to.

Looking at the bigger picture hay making and gathering in the hay in traditional bale size presents a number of working at height challenges if done the way "its always been done"

My difficulty is what does the Farm Manager tell the EHO upon his return?

Short term, get a scaffold company in to erect edge protection on the stack. Is this reasonable and pactical?

Medium term, investigate the practical use of a fall arrest system and fit anchor points and safety wire. Signicant cost, training and annual operating costs that may cancel out the revenue generated by the sale of the hay, defeating the reason for making hay. Need to evaluate. Is this a practical and reasonable solution.

Long term, move towards mechanical handling of high density bales. Business plan making provision to make this investment. The Farm is a Charitable Trust working farm that works with homeless and vulnerable young adults and relies heavily on funding and charitable donations to operate so investment in plant and machinery has to be carefully planned.

In addition to all this there is a need to look at the stacking of bales on trailers in the field as well, as there is a significant WAH issue here also.

After all that rambling, I suppose I am looking for some concensus of opinion and support from my peers that I am tackling this challenging problem in a balanced, reasonable and practical way.

If money was no object I know exactly what they need to do. But money is a factor!

Posted By CB
I thought the guidance allowed for short periods of working time off a ladder i.e. enough time to paint a window. How long does the working process take?

Posted By CB
I dont know, I live in a bungalow

CB

Posted By Danny Swygart
Mobile Tower Scaffold?

Posted By Mev
Chris
Is the roof structure directly above the stack made of steel beams and capable of being used as a secure point to hang an inertia reel from taking into account shock loading, if so hang a reel with a line connected to the hook so you can pull the inertia reel line out without leaving the floor, connect it to your harness then climb the ladder and do what you have to do, when finished climb back down and unhook, would this help in the short term, obviously the training would come in to it but shouldn't be difficult.

Posted By alison lothian
HSE advice safe stacking and handling of bales on HSE website. Why is Local Authority inspecting agricultural activity?

Posted By Chris Huckle
Hi Chris

You are not alone with your problem it has exercised our minds for a considerable amount of time. The approach that we have used to try to reduce/minimse any working at height, is to use a materials handler/foreloader fitted with a flat eight grab (that we use for loading and handling small bales in the field) and mechanically load and unload the barn, you do end up with a stack that is not quite as stable as if you do build it by hand but if nobody is going onto the stack it helps eliminate the problem.

The other option is to move gradually to large bales that have to be handled by machine, leaving only a minimal number of small bales.

Whilst I know that neither the above situations are perfect it would show that you are trying to manage the risk. You could also point out to the inspector the number of people injured when removing bales from the stack at ground level and making the stack unstable.

If they still insist you should ask them what their solution would be. I also think that you need to be realistic in that I am sure you would have a devils own job getting someone to put a harness on everytime they went onto the bale stack. I am sure they would do it when you are there but when they work on their own I would doubt it very much.

If you want to discuss it further drop me an email.

Good luck.

Chris

Posted By John Webster
Following Alison's posting, I was curious enough to look up the HSE's leaflet on the topic INDG 125 Handling and Stacking Bales in Agriculture

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg125.pdf

Their high tech solution for your situation is

"Avoid working near edges"

"Consider guarding the edges of stacks in buildings by fencing in non-loading sides"

"Use a strong ladder which is secured to prevent it slipping and is long enough for the job".

Suggest you get a copy for your enforcer!