Fall Protection Equipment for Working at Height

When working at height, you must have the proper safety equipment to prevent falls. Many circumstances require fall protection systems to be in place, and It is important to remember that working in an area with a fall risk may not necessarily mean you are up a tower or in a cherry lift. It could mean that you are working at the edge of a deep foundation, the edge of an empty swimming pool, or even the top of a steep roadside embankment.

The core function of all fall prevention and protection devices is to prevent injury from occurring from a fall. Fall safety system components come in many formats depending on the task they are designed for, with a commonality that they all require you to wear a harness.

We are proud to work with some of the best names in the height safety equipment industry. We only supply quality brands that can demonstrate great quality control and have excellent customer service and reputation, ensuring that you, as the end user are well-informed and supported.

Before looking at the different types of fall arrest systems, it is worth getting familiar with the common components used within the range.

Fall Restraint

You are best to think of this as equipment that prevents you from getting to a point where you can have a fall. An example of this setup would be where you are working on a flat roof and use a lanyard attached to an anchor point that does not allow you to get close to the roof edge. Another excellent example of a restraint application is a worker in a cherry picker basket, where the worker can use an appropriately adjusted lanyard to prevent themself from being able to lean over or fall out of the basket.

• Lanyards for this application do not generally have shock absorbers; they can be both fixed length and adjustable. These systems operate in such a way as to prevent the risk of free fall.
• Harnesses used in this application only need to be one point. However, a two-point or more-point harness may be required if your work environment requires it.

Fall Arrest

Fall arrest equipment kicks in after something has gone wrong. A fall arrest system aims to prevent the wearer from falling onto the ground below in the event of a fall. It does all this whilst also decelerating them in a controlled manner to ensure that the shock of the system stopping the fall does not cause injury. For example, you may use a fall arrest setup whilst climbing a ladder or working at height erecting Scaffolding .

• Lanyards used in these applications contain a shock-absorbing element; they have a stated working length that will extend as the shock absorber deploys in the event of a fall.
• There are no special requirements for harnesses in fall arrest applications, a simplistic single-point harness is often sufficient, but this will ultimately depend on your working application.

Who Needs Fall Protection Devices?

When people think of fall protection, they immediately think of workers operating tens of metres up in the air. Whilst these workers do indeed need overhead fall protection systems to prevent accidents, even someone working on a garage roof is at risk of injury if they were to fall.

With this in mind, it is always worth considering what steps you can take to remove the risk of getting to an area where you can fall down any distance; as mentioned above, you may even be working at ground level next to a deep excavation. In these situations, you still need a safety line and restraint if you are working near the edge as part of a restraint system to prevent falls.

You may have the right equipment, but if you are not using it correctly, you may unknowingly be putting yourself in danger with an elevated false sense of security.

Minimum Free Space Required

When setting up, you must always consider how much space you have to fall into. In brief, you need to consider how long is your entire setup. This includes;

• How long is the lanyard when under tension?
• How long the shock absorber is when extended (if you are using one)?
• How far your feet extend down from the anchor point in use on your harness?
• And of course, an allowance for some “safety clearance”.

Fall Factor

Determined by the anchor point position, an anchor point above you with an already relatively taut restraint or arrester has a far shorter free fall distance than an anchor point at foot level. Generally, you should aim to have your anchor point as high as possible and avoid using one at ground level unless it is the only option.

Pendulum Effect

If your anchor point position is 10m to your side, you are at risk of swinging if you take a fall. This pendulum effect is not an issue if there is nothing within the ark that you are swinging into. Still, it can be dangerous and painful if it means you will swing into another structure or graze along a ledge before coming to a standstill.