Lifting and Lowering (useful "rule of thumb")

[John Poole]

You'll find the diagram is a guide, and it's important to remember that should you be running a site of job, that you are responsible to manage, monitor and organise the site, job and therefore lifts.  Bearing in mind that should you not do that, and subsequently injure a site operative they can bring action against you - always one eye open to being sued or HSE actions.   

 

Employing the worlds strongest man and telling him he cant lift a certain weight is stupid, therefore the diagram is a guide and any manual handling task should be assessed for weight, load type, person, environment etc.

[Jeremy Harris]

Self-builders are not normally employers, they are clients or customers, so in general it's wrong to assume that the H&S@WA applies in the same way as it does to an employer.  I managed a lot of our build, but at no time did I ever employ anyone, and at no time did I ever have any responsibilities under the H&S@WA.  I did make sure that my responsibilities, where defined by contract with contractors, were fulfilled, but frankly these were minimal, and I probably went a bit OTT by providing facilities that I wasn't strictly required to provide.

 

I've never, ever, heard of a single case where the HSE has even as much as looked at prosecuting a self-builder, which isn't surprising.  The key here is to make sure that contractors are aware of their responsibilities, and that they understand that you, as a self-builder, are, by definition, not an employer.  This is an important distinction, because important issues, like VAT regulations, mean that a self-builder cannot be a commercial entity, limited company, or any form of employer.