Advice on Scaffolding Boards and Planks

When you add materials and tools and more height to the tumble, the number of injuries and deaths goes up. There are some experts that estimate that over ninety percent of the scaffold accidents involve the failure of the boards or planks that workers are actually standing on. Here are few quick tips to help you avoid accidents.

Tip 1: Use the Right Material

There are manufactured scaffold planks available made out if different materials like aluminum. While these planks are great, they’re also really expensive, so most people use wooden planking. Most of the time, wooden boards that can be used in scaffold as marked as ‘scaffold grade’. In most cases, a grade 1 board that is two inches thick by ten inches wide is okay for an eight foot span.

Tip 2: Inspect the Boards

When you first buy the planking you’re going to use on your scaffold, you want to check the boards for knots, bad grain, splits, warping and other imperfections.

You should also inspect the boards ever time you put your scaffold together. If they haven’t been stored properly and have started to split or crack, you may want to consider replacing them before you climb out on them at twenty feet in the air.

Tip 3: Storage

Store your boards in a dry, well ventilated location. Moisture is going to weaken the wood. If they are wet and put somewhere the air can’t get to them, they are going to start to rot. Leaving them out in the weather during a long term job isn’t a good idea. You will probably at least want to move them to an area where they are covered and protected from any potential rain. The way you stack them matters, too. You want to make sure the boards aren’t laying in such a way that causes them to warp of bow. Again, warping and bowing will weaken the board and even keep them from laying across the scaffold supports properly.

Tip 4: Don’t Abuse

In one recent case, workers were hurt on a jobsite and sued the company they worked for, accusing them of not having purchased proper boards. It was found that the boards were correct but the workers, when they would tear down the scaffold, would just drop the boards to the ground instead of lowering them. The force of the drop had embedded gravel in the ends of some of the boards. This kind of damage can seriously weaken the board. Like any tool, if you take care of them, they will take care of you.

Scaffolding, Aluminium Scaffolding, Scaffolding Planks from Turbo International