Thousands of single-storey houses are being built across Australia on any given day. And few realise how serious the risk of a fall from height can be while working on one.
The single storey family home would arguably be the most ubiquitous pieces of construction work seen in Australia. Every street, in just about every suburb would have a handful of single storey homes on it.
Although these may seem relatively straight forward to get built, they can be incredibly dangerous places to work. Especially when you look at them from a height safety perspective.
Building single-storey houses is a numbers game
Put simply, as a percentage of overall building and construction work in Australia, a significant amount of it is dedicated to building houses.
And this is only going to increase over the coming years as urban sprawl continues apace in the nation’s capital cities.
At any one time there are thousands of houses under construction across the country. And a fair percentage of those are going to be single-storey houses.
Given the different tradespeople that are needed to take a new dwelling from initial formwork through to lockup and completion, there is the potential for someone to be working at height on a house every day.
These numbers mean that there is significant cumulative risk accruing every day, bringing the probability of a fatal fall closer to 1 than zero.
How high is a height?
It is an unfortunate reality, but one of the biggest contributing factors in falls from height is that there is a wide gulf between what is working at height and what is perceived to be working at height. This difference is one of the driving factors in why poor height safety decisions are made across industries.
The “Reducing falls from heights in the construction industry – Options Paper” produced by Safe Work NSW in June 2023 found that “heights” are perceived by workers and their supervisors to be at least two storeys or more.
Data from the regulator shows most serious injuries and fatalities occur from heights of four (4) metres or less. Four metres of height is roughly equivalent to working on the roof of a single storey house.
This disconnect demonstrates that workers are not in the practice of realising just how readily they are placing themselves in a high-risk environment when working on construction of a house.
Trading off workability and safety
Most height safety and fall protection systems are designed to restrict the areas where a worker can move to keep them away from any fall risks present on site. They are also designed using the assumption that workers will be standing on a solid and trafficable surface.
During the construction phase of a building – especially a residential house – there is often need for workers to be constantly moving around the structure. This is especially true while the building frames are being placed. Also, when the roof itself is being installed, whether it be metal sheeting or tiles.
At the same time, there is rarely a solid structure available for workers to stand on. They are often moving between rafters and different frame elements each with substantial gaps between them that present a real risk of a fall.
This need for free movement in combination with a hazardous environment that clashes with what a fall protection system typically is designed to do results in workers in house construction being placed at significant risk of a fall.
Fall arrest and single storey buildings
It may seem counterintuitive, but there can be situations where even using a safety system will not be enough to stop a worker from hitting the ground in the event of a fall. Even if they are, the system may not meet the clearance requirements to be adequate under Australian standards.
In some situations, the calculation of the distance a worker may travel in the event of a fall, even one that will be arrested by a safety system can mean that to be safe a worker may need to be higher than they actually are.
For example, a worker has connected themselves to a fall arrest system that allows them to travel one metre away from the anchor point. This is so they can screw down a roof sheet.
The anchor point is on a piece of the frame approximately 3.5m above the floor level.
They fall.
That one metre of travel distance turns into one metre of free fall. Our worker is 1.8 metres tall.
This leaves only 700mm remaining to the ground. If the shock absorber on the system deploys, which is likely given the amount of free fall, the worker may still hit the ground even though they believe they are connected to a safety system.
Available solutions for height safety in residential construction
It may seem at first glance the problems associated with falls from height in residential construction are insurmountable. However, there are some things that can be done to minimise risks.
In New Zealand, for example, the use of safety nets has become common place.
Although they do not prevent a worker from falling, they do act to arrest the fall in a safe way that prevents impact with the ground or other obstructions.
There are other solutions, including the provision of additional workers so that a fall restraint system could be used, or substantive changes to work methods.
However, these solutions would likely result in there being increased costs associated with the work. And the unfortunate reality is that there will always be a price that will be cheaper.
That drive to reduce costs is a significant contributing factor into why poor decisions are made when it comes to working at height.
Partners in protecting people
Height Safety Engineers are your partners in protecting people. Our team bring decades of real-world safety experience and expertise to any safe access or working at height situation.
Start your safety journey today by calling 1300 884 978, emailing enquiries@heightsafety.net or filling out the contact form on this page.
