[RE-wrenches] Fall Protection Equipment

[Glenn Burt]

Standard OSHA personal safety harnesses are designed to keep someone upright and without pressure on the diaphragm in the event of loss of consciousness.
Having done substantial rock and ice climbing with state of the art climbing gear, I can tell you that it is not designed for that at all.

Sincerely,
Glenn Burt
Sent from my 'smart' phone so please excuse grammar and typos.

-----Original Message-----
From: "William Miller" <william at millersolar.com>
Sent: ‎1/‎17/‎2015 14:20
To: "RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Fall Protection Equipment

Friends:


Industrial fall protection with rear attachment offers no functionality in keeping a worker in place on a steep steel roof. We install planks in these situations but would also like to be able to cinch up a line connected to the workers waist or chest in the front to provide extra stability. Rear attached harnesses do not provide that. 


William 




On Jan 17, 2015, at 11:00 AM, Ray Walters <ray at solarray.com> wrote:


I prefer climbing gear as its much lighter weight and doesn't drag you around.  I actually think in some cases that traditional fall protection gear can be more of a tripping hazard than the safety it provides.   However, I was previously under the impression that if OSHA (or in the islands: HIOSH) came around, we had to ditch the climbing gear and get into the 3 times as heavy regular harnesses.
I just looked at the OSHA website though, and it doesn't seem to specify certification, just that the equipment meet the fall criteria as Dan mentioned.
https://www.osha.gov/Region7/fallprotection/fall_protection_info.html
This doesn't mention test procedures or certification of equipment.  Here's more from the actual OSHA 1926 book:

1926.502(e)(3) 
Connectors shall be drop forged, pressed or formed steel, or made of equivalent materials.
1926.502(e)(4) 
Connectors shall have a corrosion-resistant finish, and all surfaces and edges shall be smooth to prevent damage to interfacing parts of this system.
1926.502(e)(5) 
Connecting assemblies shall have a minimum tensile strength of 5,000 pounds (22.2 kN)
1926.502(e)(6) 
Dee-rings and snaphooks shall be proof-tested to a minimum tensile load of 3,600 pounds (16 kN) without cracking, breaking, or taking permanent deformation.


"Equivalent materials" ?  Seems that an aluminum caribiner that meets the other criteria would be equivalent.

Here, Petzl also makes a full line of worker safety equipment: http://www.petzl.com/en/Professional/Verticality?l=US#.VLqw4nuLXfc

This is really interesting, and I would like to have a more definitive answer from OSHA.  It would be great if we could use lighter weight climbing gear; just compare a caribiner to the heavy steel monsters you get at Grainger's.  As long as it is strong enough:
Lighter weight = less fatigue= safer,  IMHO.  
As with so many discussions on this list, it will ultimately depend on your local authorities.

R.Ray Walters
CTO, Solarray, Inc
Nabcep Certified PV Installer, 
Licensed Master Electrician
Solar Design Engineer
303 505-8760On 1/16/2015 11:20 PM, Benn Kilburn wrote:

James,
This looks like a pretty nice lanyard w/ shock-absorber, rope-grab and rope. 

What type/style harness did he bring along?

Re: OSHA approved...great question. Prior to looking into it further I'd suspect it falls in a "grey area". 

Benn Kilburn
SkyFire Energy Inc. 
780-906-7807


On Jan 16, 2015, at 9:29 AM, James Rudolph <jamesrudolph99 at gmail.com> wrote:

Aloha my Wrench Brothers!
We have a recent defector from a very large National Solar company here that

[The entire original message is not included.]
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