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#1 Posted : 04 September 2007 22:18:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ellen E Bunting
Hi

A friend of mine has asked me for advice and I thought it was a good idea to get some others involved.

She is basically faced with a problem involving work at heights. The company she works for installs fridges to large supermarkets and during the installation / maintenance the engineers are required to climb onto the top of the fridges to either install new pipework or service existing pipes.

The problem is that is is not possible to scaffold the area, therefore there is no safe working platform. The company I believe have encountered a fatality in the past when an engineer fell from one of the fridges and the pressure is on to prevent recurrence.

Does anyone have any experience with airbags and safety nets in this situation or similar. Any advice would be welcome.

EEB
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#2 Posted : 05 September 2007 08:48:00(UTC)
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Posted By John Hannon
You have mail
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#3 Posted : 05 September 2007 09:56:00(UTC)
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Posted By Richard Hinckley
Ellen - I have sent you an email on this subject - Richard
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#4 Posted : 05 September 2007 10:11:00(UTC)
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Posted By CFT
I must admit I too am interested in a methodology solution from a curiosity stand point, is it possible the above response information might be shared on the forum?

CFT
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#5 Posted : 05 September 2007 19:52:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ellen E Bunting
Thanks for the replies, I have passed on your comments to my friend.

EEB
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#6 Posted : 06 September 2007 15:16:00(UTC)
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Posted By alan brotherton
On first opinion it would seem reasonable to assume that if there were room to lay out air bags or support frameworking for netting etc. then there would be adequate room to erect edge protection around the fridges??.

It should also be consider that the work at height regulations require fall prevention systems as a first priority rather than limiting the consequences of a fall.
Alan
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#7 Posted : 06 September 2007 18:25:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ellen E Bunting
Alan

I haven't carried out an assessment of the area in question myself, therefore I am not qualified to say whether or not edge protection would be applicable.

I have however shopped for many years in these places and continue to do so and from memory, I think it would be akward enough to erect edge protection, although again I stress that I have not carried out a detailed inspection.

This thread was posted on behalf of a friend and I have passed on all the comments and contacts.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to reply. I shall let you know how she gets on.

EEB

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#8 Posted : 06 September 2007 18:43:00(UTC)
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Posted By Stuart Nagle
Thinking about this situation I would assume that the work would involve electrical connections (or possibly works by refrigeration engineer connecting gas supply pipes etc).

In such a situation I would consider a safe sysstem of work to involve connections to supplies overhead to be made first (whilst proved dead or if refrigerant gases employed the supply isolated and made safe for the additional pipes to be made and laid to supply point) and the connects made at height whilst working from a suitable platform or mobile scaffold tower (pasma training may also be required). Once this was done the plant could be moved into position and connected up, supplies tested whilst dead (installation certification - e.g. electrical, or pressure tested for gas pipes etc) and then brought into service.

I would have thought that there would little room for netting, almost nothing to support it which would mean providing an additional structure to place netting on, and the aisle in the vicinity are unlikely to be available for placing of airbags, which if the works are properly planned and executed I do not think would be necessary.

Hope this is of use

Stuart
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