My opinion is that manufacturers numbers don't reflect real world levels of exposure. If someone could help point me to guidance that would help me justify the time and expense of hiring testing kit I would be eternally grateful.

Purchasing high quality power tools and attachments has a huge impact on the level of HAV and noise. The data from manufactures can be used but I have found a great variance of the type of data available which makes it difficult to match it to the tasks. It is a good starting point and I would argue that you have to limit what can be purchased. I would not test each individual make but consider sample monitoring. There are too many other factors that come into play on site e.g. using a blunt chisel can double the HAV. I assume there is no other alternative as there are some fantastic attachments for micro excavators out now. I have not dealt with this for some time but I remember getting hold of a database from one of the major civil engineering contractors that had data on all the high quality makes matched to the most common tasks, including monitoring data. However we were occasional users and managing the HAV exposure was not an issue, which in my opinion is more difficult than choosing the tool.

I would say your starting point for deciding how much measurement you need to do is to gather some empirical data as to whether you need to do so and how much. First step should therefore be to gather over a period of time the ACTUAL trigger times then have a look at the manufacturers stated vibration levels to assess your needs. Big nasty vibrating tools may actually only be used by one individual or other for a matter of a minute or so, once every few months. Once you know that data you can decide whether to go full on machine testing, measure high usage kit, dip / sample testing or actually not waste any more time. Hope this helps, Jim

Cheers Guys, I really appreciate the help and advice. I've got the extremes arguing both ways at the moment; some to use manufacturers data all the time and others saying test everything. I was in a bit of a strop when I wrote the initial post so sorry if it came across as a bit ranty!

Has anyone used external Vibration consultants? and if so, how did that help you in managing vibration at work?

Why would you? They can only tell you what the vibration was at that time of day with that person. Tomorrow it will be completely different. Results are so variable: Material being used Thickness Clamp / vice / size of peice Pressure applied Angle of tool quality of disc / bit size of drill bit sharpness / age of disc / bit It is impossible / pointless to measure - unless you have no idea what the emmission is likely to be. You can then either decide, if I measure it today, 50 times, each for 20 people, and got readings from 10m/s to 20 m/s, probably with a Lognormal distribution, do I take the 95th percentile, the worst case, an average? The trouble with vibration, is its variability, therefore the requirement is not so much for accurate emmission data (a rough idea is a good start), the requirement is for awareness of users in signs and symptoms of over exposure, good annual (or more) health surveilance, the reduction by design the duration of exposure and where possible the purchase of a low as possible vibrating tools. Now the manufacturers emission data may not be 100% accurate, but if each manufacturer uses the same test methods you should still be able to compare like for like. And suffice to say the test data is a lot better than it used to be, so much so that the HSE no longer recommends for doubling of the emmission values for risk assessment purposes.