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Jonsey1983HGL  
#1 Posted : 05 April 2018 14:35:14(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Jonsey1983HGL

Afternoon all,

Wondering if someone can advise. I work for a Landscaping/Gardening company and we have recently been doing a skills audit of our staff. This has led us to taking a petrol chainsaw out of circulation that was being used by our Landscaping team. This was done becuase we discovered that no staff could produce evidence of having a chainsaw licence.

One of the experienced members of the team who often uses his own equipment has an electric chainsaw. I'd like your opinions on whether  we need to ensure this is also taken out of circulation until we can get a member of the team licenced. In my opinion a chainsaw is a chainsaw and we should treat it the same of a petrol one. If the guys were to use this as an alternative and we had an incident, would the HSE treat it any differently?

Any help and advice is much appreciated

Regards

Trevor

douglas.dick  
#2 Posted : 05 April 2018 15:04:22(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
douglas.dick

Regardless of the type of chainsaw employed, the user would be required to be certified by LANTRA, NPORs or similar for most sites H&S standards and certainly for Insurance purposes. What they are cutting down also comes into play, with the height of tree and width of trunk/length of bar on saw.

IMHO you need to remove all chainsaws, until courses have been taken and passed.

Charlie Brown  
#3 Posted : 05 April 2018 18:20:50(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Charlie Brown

The part you really need to worry about the most is the sharp bit. Not only does a chainsaw have a chain that will cut into flesh and bone when the saw is running it will also do this when the saw is stopped. It doesn't matter what powers the saw, what matters is the competence of the operator. No evidence of training, no using the chainsaw full stop. (spoken as someone who once worked as a dumpman in a sawmill)

Edited by user 05 April 2018 18:21:38(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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