Does anyone have any experience of ways to avoid construction personnel having to walk on rebar cages?

The contractors are telling me it is industry practice to walk on the rebar and is not a problem. I see trip and fall risks, along with potential long term foot health problems. I'm sure it must be possible to provide a temporary walkway or covering with ply plates or crawl boards or similar.

We have a large number of reinforced concrete bases to pour, unfortunately each one requires a 'fiddle' to be formed in the centre of the base before the pour so the teams are just walking on the reinforcement. Worse, they gain access by going down a ladder so are stepping backwards onto the rebar for their first step, or are twisting to see where they put their feet. In my eyes it looks like a recipe for injury...

Any thoughts or experienced comments welcome.

Steve

I've seen welders close their eyes while tack welding, rather than constantly flipping their mask up and down. Doesn't necessarily mean to say it is justifiable industry practice.

Most of these guys will often know better, but pressures to get the job done dictate short cuts that become regular occurrences/ the norm.

Hi Steve,

It depends on the width of the gaps in the rebar, some spacings are small and are fine to walk over, but as one poster did say use ply boards and make paths across the rebar, if you want to ensure these dont move, cut out small holes in the sides and tie them to the rebar.

Thanks for the replies people... Pretty much confirms what I had assumed, but I was surprised when I found very very little on the subject using a googly search. I suspect some will have seen the problem, solved it and got on with life - others have simply not seen it as a problem.

And Frank - I have seen an industry alert on the guy who fell onto vertical rebar (we don't have any- as cdm-c I have been able to persuade the designers to do (mpst of) their job properly!). Also seen the company alert about using reinforced bar-end covers because the 'standard' ones are not designed to prevent a falling body / penetration inury (the bar end will just come through a standard bar-end cover if anyone falls any distance onto it!

Thanks again folks

Steve