Edge protection
Also called Guard-rail, Guard rail, Handrail and toe-board, Perimeter edge protection
Edge protection is the guard-rails, toe-boards and barriers fitted along an open edge — a slab perimeter, a stair or lift opening, a leading edge, an excavation — to stop people and materials going over it. It is collective protection, so it works for everyone on the floor without anyone clipping on, and the Work at Height Regulations 2005 set out in a schedule of their own what it has to achieve and, for construction work, the dimensions it has to meet.
The UK position
Schedule 2 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 is the one to read, and unusually for this instrument it carries dimensions. Schedule 2 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 requires means of protection — its collective term for a guard-rail, toe-board, barrier or similar collective means of protection — to be of sufficient dimensions, of sufficient strength and rigidity for the purposes for which they are being used and otherwise suitable; to be so placed, secured and used as to ensure so far as is reasonably practicable that they do not become accidentally displaced; and to be so placed as to prevent, so far as is practicable, the fall of any person, or of any material or object, from any place of work. In relation to work at height involved in construction work, Schedule 2 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 requires the top guard-rail or other similar means of protection to be at least 950 millimetres above the edge from which any person is liable to fall, or at least 910 millimetres in the case of such means of protection already fixed at the coming into force of the Regulations; requires toe-boards to be suitable and sufficient to prevent the fall of any person, or any material or object, from any place of work; and requires any intermediate guard-rail or similar means of protection to be positioned so that any gap between it and other means of protection does not exceed 470 millimetres. Schedule 2 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 also requires any structure, or part of a structure, which supports means of protection or to which means of protection are attached to be of sufficient strength and suitable for the purpose of that support or attachment — which is the requirement that a post clamped to a thin edge detail quietly fails.
Cited by number and title:
- The Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 2 — Requirements for guard-rails, toe-boards, barriers and similar collective means of protection
- The Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 1 — Requirements for existing places of work and means of access or egress at height
Where it matters on site
Two provisions get missed, and both are about what happens after the rail goes up. Schedule 2 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 permits means of protection to be removed only for the time and to the extent necessary to gain access or egress or for the performance of a particular task, requires them to be replaced as soon as practicable, and does not permit the task to be performed while they are removed unless effective compensatory safety measures are in place. That is the rule a landing bay or a materials drop-off has to be designed around rather than improvised on the day, and it is the one that turns a five-minute removal into a documented arrangement. The second is that a guarded perimeter says nothing about the floor inside it. Schedule 1 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 requires the surface of an existing place of work at height to have no gap through which a person could fall, or through which material or an object could fall and injure a person, unless measures have been taken to protect persons against that risk — and service penetrations, duct openings and core holes are exactly that gap. A deck can be fully railed at its edge and still have an uncovered opening in the middle of it with a loose sheet of ply lying over the top.