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Posted By Gareth Wyn Hughes
Does anyone know of an established safe working windspeed limit. This is for personnel working outside and not for the safe operation of plant and equipment
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Posted By Gavin Barr
It depends on what the person is working on outside.
Are they up a ladder, on scaffold, in a forrest, in an area where wind is likley to cause a danger to buildings, trees, fences.
Has the job been risk assessed and what are the findings.
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Posted By Des Daly
Gareth,
I work in the scaffolding industry and we have a real problem with wind speed. Some work has been done on maximum speeds but the difficulty lies with gusting and the way that wind speeds can vary due to the height you are working at and the proximity of structures that can increase the speed of the wind locally. As a general rule the scaffolders normally stop outside work in exposed locations when tower cranes nearby stop - this is not an ideal situation, but neither is work stopping because of a sudden gust of wind that may exceed any prescibed safe working limits. Of course work needs to be risk assessed for any adverse effects of high wind, but that risk assessment must be qualitative requiring a good knowledge of the activity being carried out.
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Posted By Ken Taylor
The CITB have given the following guidance for working on roofs and at height:
Work activities should cease when the average wind speeds shown are exceeded:
17mph Handling lightweight materials, materials over 5m long or rolls of felt
23mph General roofing activities
I understand that the National Federation of Roofing Contractors published a more detailed guidance booklet 'Roofing and Cladding in Windy Conditions' but I do not have a copy.
The HSE recommend using an anemometer for measuring wind speed.
There may well be other industry guidance around so it would be worth checking with your industry's national bodies.
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Posted By Gareth Wyn Hughes
Thanks for the responses to date. To add a bit of clarity the issue I have is not related to working at heights, operating cranes etc etc where there is clear guidance. I work on a particularly windy site where gusts are strong enough to knock persons off their feet. The question relates particularly to access and egress of buildings around the site via external routes
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