Posted By Gra Clarke
Hi Guys,

Just been posed an interesting question. How does the WAH Regs. Deal with stilts, a lot of "spreaders" and ceiling fixers wear them on construction sites. They attach to the legs to enable the worker to access the ceiling. If they indeed come under the WAH Reg. What control measure would you instigate?

Graham

Posted By Ron Hunter
Training, good housekeeping (slips, trips & collision elimination), with work tables and prep. areas raised accordingly. All other thing should remain equal, with perhaps one exception: in the event of fire/emergency a slightly longer escape time is required to take the stilts off!

Posted By Dave Merchant
The stilts themselves are standard PUWER work equipment (they're not PPE, PFPE or LOLER and not a 'working platform' in the legal sense). There's no product standard so they may or may not be CE marked. Using them is a WAHR issue as the previous poster said, in terms of the user needing to be 'competent' and the appropriate RAs and control measures put into place. Some employers swear by them because they save money, others swear at them because they break knees.

Although it's Australian, there's a useful opinion on stilts at this link:-

http://www1.worksafe.vic...ruction_program_reports/$File/stilts.pdf