Net rigging
Also called Safety net installation, Netting installation
Net rigging is the installation of safety nets — deciding where they hang, fixing them to the structure, and tensioning them so that a fall is caught with enough clear space beneath the net for it to stretch into. It is a specialist trade carried out by trained netting operatives, and it is where most of the performance of a net is decided; the net itself is only as good as the position it is rigged in.
In practice
Three things decide whether a rigged net works, and only one of them is the net. The first is the gap beneath it: a net stops a fall by stretching, so the space it stretches into has to be clear — Schedule 4 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 puts this in law by requiring a safeguard which distorts in arresting a fall to afford sufficient clearance, and how much is a question for the standard and the installer, not for a glossary. The second is the fixings: the same Schedule requires anchors and their attachments to be suitable and of sufficient strength and stability for the foreseeable loading, which is a statement about the structure the net is tied to as much as about the ties. The third is inspection after installation, and it is the one most often skipped on a hired net. Regulation 12 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 requires that where the safety of work equipment depends on how it is installed or assembled, it is not used after installation in any position unless it has been inspected in that position — a net that was inspected on the previous bay is not inspected. BSI’s published description of BS EN 1263-2:2014 sets out what the standard governs: catching width, fall heights and required catching widths, positioning of system safety nets, positioning fixings and deformation of the safety net. That list is the specification a rigger works to and this page does not.
Where this comes from: UK safety netting practice. The positioning rules themselves live in BS EN 1263-2:2014, which is a paywalled document, so this page describes what rigging has to achieve and what the law requires of the installed net — it quotes no catching widths, fall heights or clearance figures, because those are inside the standard.
Where it matters on site
For a principal contractor the practical question is what evidence exists that the net in front of you is where it should be. Nets are commonly hired, moved as the frame rises and re-rigged bay by bay, and each of those is a fresh installation with a fresh inspection behind it, not a continuation of the first one. Ask who rigged it, what they are qualified to rig, and where the record of the inspection in that position is. Then ask the question that follows the net rather than precedes it: with the net in that position, and the frame at that stage, how would somebody actually be recovered from it — and does the answer still work at this floor-to-floor height, with these obstructions, today.