Posted By Anne Stephens Hi wondering if any of you scaffold bods can help. We have had an incident where one of our guys had a shock while erecting a scaffold. He touched a metal cable tray. The client has checked all the earths and voltages and it is all fine. They are putting it down to static as he was wearing rubber soled safety boots and working on plastic scaffold boards. Have you ever heard of this before or has it happened in your company? I'm a bit concerned as we are moving more to plastic boards due to the manual handling issue and also because of the nature of the clients work, as wood is costly to dispose of. Thanks in advance Anne

Posted By Garry Adams Anne The composition of these boards have limited advantages over the organic timber boards i.e. they do not absorb water thus making them lighter for manual handling and the resistant to rot. However, the composition of these boards are susceptible to cracks (rendering them Un-Servisable)over a comparatively short period of service, these boards require a greater degree of manual handling, they do not like rough handling. I do not wish to bad mouth this product, however, it is my personal view that it takes something exceptional to improve on the status quo (organic boards), beware of false economies in the name of progress. The static shock may have been generated by a combination of the speed at which the Scaffold Erector was working, a build up of ferrous particles from the metal tube deposited on the surface of the board and the sweat acting as a conductor. Garry...

Posted By Jane Blunt I suspect it may be the boards. It is common experience that walking across an insulating material (such as a nylon carpet) can result in the human being and the carpet becoming electrically charged. The human being may well experience a shock when they touch something that is a conductor (such as a light switch). This may be what has happened here. The scaffold boards would be good isulators. Jane

Posted By Garry Adams when the plastic boards are rendered U.S. it is of no further use other than to be sent to be recycled at a cost to th Organisation Carbon Foot Print and to the cost of replacing the board. A conventional Standard Scaffolding Board when damaged can be cut down to size and re-banded. Given the option ...I would use the conventional Scaff Board every time... Anne...consult your Scaffs before you buy replacements. Garry...