Please respond to the following 
Drive through a new housing subdivision under construction in your area. Look at the employees working at a raised elevation. Do an informal survey, and keep track of how many are working at a raised height and how many have personal fall arrest systems (PFAS) in place. What is the ratio? Discuss one such worksite, either good or bad, and why you chose it.
UNIT III STUDY GUIDE
Falls in Residential Construction, Hand
and Power Tool Issues
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit III
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
2. Analyze high-risk hazards common to construction sites.
2.1 Assess a residential worksite through the use of observational and assessment skills.
3. Examine technology useful for improving safety outcomes.
3.1 Explain how these new devices can improve safety outcomes as they relate to fall protection
and fall prevention for residential construction.
3.2 Evaluate a worker’s tool usage and explain how new technology can improve safety outcomes
for mitigating hand and body injuries caused by tool misuse.
Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes
2.1
3.1
3.2
Learning Activity
Unit Lesson
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Article: “OSHA Top 10 Most Cited Violations 2019”
Article: “Preventing Falls in Construction: NIOSH Issues Fact Sheet”
Article: “Trends in … Hand Protection”
Unit III Case Study
Unit Lesson
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Article: “OSHA Top 10 Most Cited Violations 2019”
Article: “Preventing Falls in Construction: NIOSH Issues Fact Sheet”
Article: “Trends in … Hand Protection”
Unit III Case Study
Unit Lesson
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Article: “OSHA Top 10 Most Cited Violations 2019”
Article: “Preventing Falls in Construction: NIOSH Issues Fact Sheet”
Article: “Trends in … Hand Protection”
Unit III Case Study
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 7: Subparts A through E and Related Safety Practices
Chapter 8: Subparts F through J and Related Safety Practices
In order to access the following resources, click the links below.
Depa, T. H. (2019, June 23). Trends in … hand protection. Safety+Health.
https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/18576-trends-in-hand-protection
Druley, K. (2019, November 24). OSHA’s top 10 most cited violations for 2019. Safety+Health.
https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/19087-oshas-top-10-most-cited-violations
OSH 4310, Special Topics in Construction Safety
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Preventing Falls in Construction: NIOSH issues fact sheet. (2019, April 23). Safety+Health.
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/18329-preventing-falls-in-construction-nioshTitle
issues-fact-sheet
Unit Lesson
Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Focus Four and Fall Protection Standards
For the past several years, falls have been the most significant issue for people working in construction.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA, 2014) Focus Four continues to show falls as the
leading cause of death and injury in the construction trade. Over the past several years, it would seem that
the residential construction industry has received the most attention from OSHA inspectors based on the
number of violations written (Druley, 2019). Why is this an issue? Everyone knows that falls are an issue on
construction sites, and everyone knows that OSHA has a standard for fall protection for construction, 29 CFR
1926.501 (OSHA, n.d.). Yet, we continue to see workers fall from heights and sustain injuries and fatalities
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2018). The numbers are certainly better than years past, but the fact
that there are still people being injured or killed from falls makes this a special topic for construction.
Take a Drive
Look at any residential construction site in your area. Many workers building single-family homes are working
at high heights and are not wearing fall protection, as seen in anecdotal evidence. There are many questions
you can ask about this situation. Are they not wearing fall protection because there is little oversight from
government regulators? Perhaps the residential construction industry has not taken the fall issue seriously.
Maybe the lack of corporate oversight is an issue. There really are so many different reasons that can come
into play here. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most homebuilders are smaller companies or
contracting companies and the need for safety oversight has not been a need to be met. Safety as a line item
on the budget is not generally associated with profits. The issue here is productivity versus safety and quality.
Productivity makes the company money on a real and daily basis. Safety and quality generally do not;
therefore, companies have issues with spending money on items that do not make money. Safety is a cost
versus benefit decision.
The issue is very apparent as soon as one walks onto or drives by a residential construction site. For the
purposes of this discussion, residential construction sites are those where buildings are being constructed for
the purpose of allowing people to reside in them when finished (Law Insider, n.d.). All employees must be
aware of the need for fall protection in these circumstances. In larger commercial and industrial construction
projects, each employee attends a site safety orientation prior to starting work on that project. During this
time, which can range from an hour to a couple of days, the worker is exposed to most of the site safety
standards. Most workers are required to have an OSHA 10 card indicating that they attended an OSHA
authorized 10-hour class or course on safety. The issue here is that many of the smaller, local home builders
may not provide that additional training. Many times, the contractor simply calls the subcontractor who then
sends their team of construction workers to the site. Maybe they have the training but maybe they do not.
Other Trades and Their Fall Issues
The biggest issue for falls on the residential construction site involves the framing group or carpenters.
Building the elements such as walls, floor joists, roof trusses, rafters, and roofing materials is the issue here.
Single-story homes may intuitively seem like there would not be any real fall issues, but even single-story
homes can have roof lines that are 15 to 20 feet off the ground. Watch the workers in your area build a home.
They climb up onto the wall tops and rafters without any thought given to falling. On some two-story homes
with an attic, workers will stand on the tops of a wall while the rafters are flown in by crane. They catch the
rafters and place them into the respective positions. Then, they bend over at the waist and nail the rafters to
the walls using nail plates. Sometimes these employees are 30 or more feet off the ground. Sometimes they
fall. An injury from this height may require a visit to the orthopedic surgeon or even the neurosurgeon. In
some worst-case scenarios, the injured employee eventually sees the forensic pathologist at their own
autopsy.
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Personal Fall Arrest Systems
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
With fall protection being as common as it is, one must wonder why an employee would not spend the money
for this tool. The carpenter or framer has no trouble spending hundreds of dollars on a single tool for nailing or
framing; yet, getting them to invest in their safety equipment seems almost an insurmountable task. Spending
as little as a couple of hundred dollars on a personal fall arrest system (PFAS) seems like a no-brainer, yet
very few will do this. However, we might be getting ahead of ourselves here. Personal protective equipment
(PPE) is the last line of defense in the hierarchy of controls for safety (National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health [NIOSH], 2015). There are actually four other items that can be explored before one gets to
the need for PPE. All of these residential construction scenarios have an engineered drawing or plan that
must be approved by the local zoning and planning board. At this level the oversight should begin. When the
plans are drawn up, the safety management systems (SMS) should be implemented (Safeopedia, 2017).
Considering the other hierarchy of controls like elimination, substitution, engineering, and administrative
controls, it would seem that the hazard can be removed or mitigated long before anyone swings a hammer to
strike a nail. Yet, at this level, there seems to be little correction of this issue. Responsibility for providing
PPEs and preventing falls seems to lie solely with the workers.
Other trades on the residential construction site that could have fall issues might include plumbers; heating,
ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) professionals; electricians; drywall installers (sheetrock); and
painters. The fall issue is not just from the roof line or the top of the wall. The fall issue can also affect those
working from scaffolding and ladders or from upper levels and attics that are not properly guarded with
handrails, guardrails, and barricades. Anecdotally, there is the case of the sheetrock installer who fell through
the open hole on the first floor into the basement. The employee was moving a large sheet of drywall and
walking backward when he fell through the opening in the floor for the stairwell into the basement. The stair
system had not been installed yet. The employee landed on pieces of lumber stacked in the basement,
fracturing his spine in several areas and also sustaining internal injuries. There was no barricade or other fall
prevention device in place for this floor opening, and there was no job hazard analysis (JHA) for employees
working the site. The contractor did not have any form of pre-task planning in place to make the employees
aware of this or other hazards. Each trade, according to the contract, was to have a discussion prior to
beginning work for the day about the hazards one might find. Therefore, there was no formal hazard
recognition and ultimately no way to mitigate the hazard. The employee who fell paid the price for improper
risk assessment. The controlling contractor has the ultimate responsibility in this scenario (OSHA, 1970)
Let’s See a Show of Hands
Another place on the residential construction site that seems to
have a very high injury incident rate is the use of hand and power
tools. The OSHA Focus Four item here is the caught-between or
pinch-point injury. Think about the hand and power tools used on a
construction site: striking tools such as hammers and pry bars,
cutting tools like saws and knives, and powder-actuated tools to
help fire nails into the concrete. All of these tools require the use of
a worker’s hands to work the tool, and should the worker not pay
close attention to the placement of their hands when operating the
tools, then injuries and fatalities can occur. Anyone who has ever
used a hammer knows what it feels like to miss the nail and hit his
or her thumb. A common hallmark for a carpenter is a blackened
thumbnail.
Personal Protective Equipment—the Last Line of Defense
Hands often must get close to the pinch
points in order to use tools effectively.
(Welcomia, n.d.)
The normal fix to this issue is for the worker to wear some form of PPE, but as was discussed earlier in this
lesson, PPE should be the last line of defense. What other forms of hazard mitigation could be used? Some
would suggest the air-powered nail gun. That keeps the worker from striking their body parts with the
hammer. This different tool, although very useful and time conserving, brings its own issues. In the anecdotal
story of the carpenter working at home on a honey-do list, the carpenter brings his air-powered tools home to
make short work of the task. The carpenter’s wife is somewhat concerned about the dangers of the airpowered nail gun. The carpenter assures his wife that all is well and that the risk of injury is low. He states,
“The gun will only go off when it is placed against a hard surface.” He demonstrates this safety feature by
OSH 4310, Special Topics in Construction Safety
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placing the nail gun against his thigh and pulling the trigger. About an hour later
the xcarpenter
arrives at the
UNIT
STUDY GUIDE
local emergency room where he must admit that he has a nail embedded in his
thigh muscle. The nail is
Title
removed surgically, and the carpenter is released to go home. The wife still has some concerns about the nail
gun because the carpenter continues to use it for the tasks at home. About a month after his surgery to
remove the nail from his thigh muscle, the same carpenter returns to the same emergency room with another
nail gun injury. This time it is a nail through his thumb. As the ER physician is removing the nail, the statement
is made by the wife that the nail gun has already been sold to someone else. That way the carpenter will not
be back for a third nail gun injury. The control used here was the employee’s wife selling the air tool and
forcing the employee to go back to the tried and true method of using a hammer. In this circumstance, the
power tool created the hazard, and the hazard was mitigated by the employee’s wife removing the power tool
from the employee’s ability to use it.
The Significance of This Issue
The hand and power tool issue is one that occurs many times daily throughout the construction trade.
Abrasions, lacerations, puncture wounds, crush injuries, and amputations are extremely common for these
tools. Urgent care clinics and emergency departments nationwide are inundated with these types of injuries
daily. What is also noted are the work-related musculoskeletal injuries that chronic use of these tools can
provide: strains, sprains, stress fractures, muscle fatigue, and nerve damage. Thoracic outlet syndrome and
carpal tunnel syndrome are just two such examples. The tools that make the job so much easier can also
make it so much worse for the employee. As was presented in previous safety discussions and courses, the
easiest way to control this hazard is awareness and training. Familiarity with the tools and their capabilities
makes the chances of an injury significantly less.
Conclusion
In conclusion, falls in residential construction are one of the most cited violations for OSHA inspectors, which
makes this a special topic for the construction trade. The use of hand and power tools on the jobsite is also a
special topic. The employee’s hands must be used to operate these tools, and because of this, the chances of
injury to the hand are significant. During the risk assessment matrix, which should be completed prior to work
beginning on any jobsite, special consideration should be given to these two very important and dangerous
topics.
References
Druley, K. (2019, November 24). OSHA’s top 10 most cited violations for 2019. Safety+Health.
https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/19087-oshas-top-10-most-cited-violations
Law Insider. (n.d.). Residential building. In Law Insider.com dictionary.
https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/residential-building
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. (2015, January 13). Hierarchy of controls. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hierarchy/default.html
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). Fall protection: Construction standards and resources.
https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/fallprotection/construction.html
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (1970). Safety and health regulations for construction: Steel
erection: Definitions (OSHA Standard No. 1926.751). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/1926.751
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (2014, November 10). Outreach training program:
Construction focus four training.
https://www.osha.gov/dte/outreach/construction/focus_four/index.html
Safeopedia. (2017, October 13). Safety management system (SMS).
https://www.safeopedia.com/definition/1050/safety-management-system-sms
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2018). Injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0313.htm#cfoi_at_a1.f.4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Welcomia. (n.d.). Woodwork using nail gun (ID 102835465) [Photograph]. Dreamstime.
https://www.dreamstime.com/woodwork-using-nail-gun-caucasian-construction-worker-creatingwood-elements-using-powerful-nail-gun-tool-woodwork-using-nail-gun-image102835465
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