Top 5 Residential Construction Safety Tips

Safety is critical in home construction – even if it is just a remodel. Anytime there are heavy tools or other hazardous items, it is critical to have precautions in place. Each year, millions of construction workers are involved in serious, sometimes life threatening accidents. Some construction workers lose digits and even their lives Most of the injuries that do occur, however are ones that can be avoided. Most of the time, though, just putting some protocols in place helps. If you are a residential contractor, it is important to have some of these measures laid out before your team gets to work. Here are the top five residential construction safety tips.

1. Make sure that you handle equipment safely. Construction equipment can be incredibly heavy and it can be unsafe to carry on your own. If you are dealing with focus salvage or any other big pieces of wood, it may be important to have someone help you load and unload from a truck. The general rule of thumb should be: if you can’t carry it on your own, don’t carry it. When it comes down to it, you can injure yourself and other people if you try to show off -it just isn’t worth it.
2. Too many cooks in the kitchen. If there are too many people working in a room, it could get dangerous. As a contractor, you want to keep people working, but not within such tight quarters. If there is a particularly small room, you probably only want to have one or two people working. If there is a larger room, you could probably have a few more workers, but certainly not if there is a particularly delicate job at hand that requires dangerous tools or equipment. When it comes down to it, it is always better to be safe than sorry.
3. Always wear a hardhat. Your head is perhaps the most sensitive part of your body, so it is critical that you protect it. This is why wearing a hard hat is so important. Even in commercial construction, fixtures can fall and heavy items could come crashing down. The last thing you want is for your head to be vulnerable. If you can, you want to wear a hard hat that is specifically made from heavy duty construction.
4. Always wear gloves. Next to your head, your hands are perhaps the next important thing to keep safe. When it comes down to it, you may be working with hazardous materials that could harm the skin on your hands. You also may be working with saws and other sharp items, so you want to keep your fingers safe from blades and other tools that could take a few fingers. There are many gloves that you can purchase that can protect your hands from many of these tools.
5. Make sure that you wear goggles. Also, your eyes are incredibly important. If you are sawing, nailing or doing any other dangerous task that could put your eyes in danger, having a heavy duty pair of construction glasses is vital. It is important, though, that you have glasses that offer a full field of vision, because you want to be able to see everything you are doing.