Jetter Health & Safety Leave a comment
As tradies we generally have a lackadaisical approach to Health & Safety, yes we tick all the boxes and fill in the paper work to say we have done it to keep the office lady off our backs, but in my experience this is done mechanically using a generic tick box system on cell phones or tables with little or no thought put into it and around the potential hazards.
According to ACC, every year in New Zealand on average there are 720 people injured using pressure washers or jetters. Most of those injuries are just flesh wounds like some dimwit water blasting his deck in jandels taking a bit of bark off his toes as he sweeps past with the lance, luckily in most cases, the bark grows back.
In our industry the gear we use is potentially dangerous and those that have been in the job a while all have had close shaves and stories to tell like when the jetter found it’s way out of a broken drain and came up through the lawn like the space shuttle. This looks, and in most cases is funny at the time – unless Johnny is riding his trike coincidentally on the front lawn at the same time.
I once bought a used jetter from Fulton Hogan 450LPM @ 3,000 psi. They had sold it as a kneejerk reaction as the sister unit based in Rarotonga had tragically killed one of their workers who started it up on the ground to check something out, the flusher head weighing around 10kgs reared up like a snake swung around and with full force struck him in the head killing him instantly.
Here in New Zealand we have gone over the top with aspects of Health & Safety especially with the use of road cones and full cover overalls in the peak of summer, but I feel the industry has overlooked pressure washing & the use of jetters.
Although we share the same AS/NZS4233.1.2013 we don’t apply it here like the Aussies. Is it because Kiwis are tougher than the Aussies and we are brighter than them? The AS/NZ Standard has broken pressure washing down into two categories Class A …under 5,600 bar lpm (multiply pressure in bar by flow) & Class B…over 5,600 bar lpm (multiply pressure in bar by flow).
Basically Class A is less pressure and volume like a Karcher domestic pressure washer Class A where you just loose the bark off your toes. Class A jetters require no qualification or training and any one can use them.
Class B is for the higher pressure and volume units that generally is more commercial or industrial. To use a Class B machine, you need to sit a course and become qualified, yip like your car licence, confined space, first aid etc. For some reason we do not enforce this standard here, especially big companies like Downer, Fulton Hogen, Fletchers etc.
Our mates over the ditch have kindly given us their safety blog which is really informative for free, which is surprising as you cant normally get a beer out of them for free. I encourage you to look at it as it might save you getting a nozzle in the head or sending wee Johnny on the trike shuttle to Mars.
