Particles of gravel were found imbedded in the end grain of the plank during the investigation. As it turned out, the supplier had provided “scaffold grade” planks, yet a plank failed. A crew member fell from a roof when a plank snapped at mid-span. One builder unsuccessfully sued a material supplier for providing off-grade scaffold planks to his job. The fact that you have used staging planks successfully in the past doesn’t assure safe use in the future if the planks have been overstressed. Or consider side-wallers who use pump staging: how often are the poles spaced less than 10 feet apart(OSHA regulation)? Overloading stresses wooden planks beyond their elastic range, causing them to fail at a later time under lighter loads. Think of the times you have seen a mason standing in the middle of a plank with bricks stacked up to his waist, only to have his tender sling a tub of mortar onto the pile. But the blame goes to workers unfamiliar with safe and proper use of equipment.Ĭontractors often overload wooden staging planks. Knots and cross grain show up like a bad penny in most failures. In fact, some experts claim plank failures cause injury in 90% of the cases they investigate. Wooden planks seem to lie at the heart of most residential scaffold failures. It’s no surprise when I hear experts argue that improper material selection and misuse cause most scaffold failures. All failures were caused either by using the wrong material correctly or the right material incorrectly. Looking back, I could have easily avoided the few staging failures that occurred on my projects. Like most conscientious builders, I always put safety first – usually. Through 20 years of stretching from ladders, climbing on roofs and bouncing across over-extended staging planks, I stand unscathed. Typical failures prove that safety is an active choice. Thousands of builders are injured every year as a result of scaffold failures. Some information contained in it may be outdated. Please note: This older article by our former faculty member remains available on our site for archival purposes.
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