Two Tips for Avoiding Injury When Renovating Your Home

Two Tips for Avoiding Injury When Renovating Your Home

Two Tips for Avoiding Injury When Renovating Your Home

8 March 2018
 Categories:
Construction & Contractors, Blog


If you want to renovate your home, here are two tips which should help to ensure that neither you nor your team sustains injuries during the renovation process.

Use domestic scaffolding instead of ladders

If your renovation project will involve updating the roof or rendering the exterior walls of your home, it's a good idea to purchase or hire some domestic scaffolding, rather than using a ladder, as this will drastically reduce the likelihood of you or your renovation team getting hurt during the course of the project.

There are a couple of reasons why domestic scaffolding is safer than a ladder.

Firstly, unlike a ladder, it has a wide, sturdy platform which is enclosed by guardrails; this means that if you lose your footing or faint whilst you are standing on it, you won't fall several metres to the ground, but will instead simply land on the platform or slump against the railings.

Conversely, if you stumble whilst using a ladder, there will be nowhere for you to fall but the ground beneath you.

Secondly, because the scaffolding will be securely attached to the walls of your home, there will be little to no risk of it being blown over by a strong gust of wind. This means that if the weather takes a turn for the worst during your renovation project, you won't have to worry about the structure swaying dangerously or toppling over whilst you are standing on it.

A ladder, on the other hand, could easily be knocked over if it is used on a very windy day. If this should happen when you are standing on it, you could end up being thrown off the rungs onto the ground. This could leave you with very serious injuries.

As such, whilst domestic scaffolding may cost a little more than a ladder, it is worth investing in if you want to minimise your chances of getting hurt during the renovation process.

Don't scrimp on safety gear

Renovating your home can be very expensive. As such, you might feel tempted to opt for cheap safety gear (or no safety gear at all), rather than spending an excessive amount of money on this element of the project.

However, the quality of the safety gear you use could play a determining role in whether or not you sustain an injury when updating your home.

For example, if you wear cheap gardening gloves to protect your hands when using an electric saw to cut timber, instead of a pair of thick, high-grip work gloves, one of two things could happen; firstly, you could lose your grip on the saw, and it could end up landing on, and badly wounding, one of your feet.

Secondly, if you accidentally place your free hand too close to the blade of the saw, the equipment could slice straight through the cheap gloves and lacerate your fingers or palm.

As such, it is critical to spend as much as you can afford on high-quality safety gear.

About Me
Planning Contractors and Construction Work

If you are planning to carry out construction work on the interior or exterior of your home, you should first take professional advice. My home is located on quite a steep hill and I decided that I would like to build an extension. Not only would this involve digging a new foundation, it would also involve backfilling some areas of land so the new extension would be properly supported. I decided to call my friend who works as a contractor for a construction company. He offered me lots of great advice and thanks to him the job was a complete success.

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