Havs

[Hitch]

Nice one Malc..
I have a few that i have found myself, for some common tools used in the industry.

Rotabroach Panther, 0.51m/s2
Milwaukee medium sds drill/breaker 10.51m/s2
Bosch GWS 5" grinder, 5.5m/s2 (3m/s2 with a sanding disc)
Hitachi 5" grinder 4.9m/s2
Hitachi 9" Grinder 2.5m/s2

 

[pedrobedro]

If they can only use the tool for 17 minutes it will increase the number of people they need to employ so there is someone to pick it up when the first man's time runs out, 4 people to run a drill for just over an hour then the first bloke can probably start over. It's a cunning way to get unemployed people back to work. Take a number please, like on the deli counter. DA sander was always the one that left me with tingly fingers rubbing down boiler panels for spraying.

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

For my sins I worked as a cable installer etc at BT for several years , using their supplied hand held electric drills it was well known that to drill more than ten holes in a hard wall using hammer was likely to damage the nerves that pass through your carpel tunnel .

I had 40 mtrs of hard rendered & pebble dashed wall to plug every 300 mm at 5 mtrs up off the ground .

Unknowingly I pressed on wearing out several quality masonry twist bits , changing the hand holding the drill and resting when needed ... a few week later I started to lose feelings in both hands at my thumbs and finger tips .

One day I was walking down some stairs with a full tool case in each hand when I dropped both cases down the stairs ..tools went several flights further .

I managed to collect everything ..thankfully no one was hit by flying tools etc. I went to casualty realizing that something strange had happened .

This resulted in me having nerve conduction tests in both hands ( then aged 42 yrs old ) and being diagnosed as having severe nerve compressionS in my carpel tunnels in each hand.

After a few weeks on sick I each hand was operated on to decompress the nerves .. ( QUITE AMUSING GOING TO THE LOO ) .

It's never fully recovered and when it is cold it plays up .. BT's response I drilled to many holes in one day and I should have been wearing their approved safety gloves .

 

[malcolm]

Here's a scan from the booklet "Control the risks from hand-arm vibration - Advise for employers on the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005". Anyone please let me know if it's out of date.

There are 2 limits on the chart - one where the employer ought to be thinking about doing something, and the other where the employee might be suffering health damage (The EAV and the ELV in the chart). It says the rules will change this year. It won't be completely accurate as the frequency is very important to as your hands amplify the vibration at certain frequencies. From memory somewhere between 10-15 Hz vibration is bad for hands.

Also the manufacturer's figures are "typical". Different grinding disc, material, method will change the vibration level.

 

[Sam]

Early last year I spent 3 days solid hacking render off a building with an SDS drill/chisel "to get the job done", at the end of it I could hardly hold the side handle in my left hand. It certainly b*ggered up the guitar playing for a while and even now my little finger doesn't always feel right, feels a little numb. I know some H&S rules are over the top but they are there for your protection lets face it the job shouldn't maim or kill you !

Look at it this way, if it was your house would you do it for yourself?I would without hesetation or would you pay a guy £1000 to do it for you but only allow him 2hr per day to get it done but you need it done now to get the new harling on and get the house weather tight again. Where do you or the contractor stand?

This is one reason why I work on my own now I used to employ 13 people at the peak but could not be arsed with all the moaning from employees. so now I will grind for the whole day, paint the walls, clean the toilets myself. At the end of the day I have a great life style because I get on with it. Have never asked anyone to do something I would not carry out myself but thats only my willing to work view. Yes I have athritis starting in my hands probably due to grinding for days on end but so did my granny and she blamed playing the piano wonder what H&S think about that?

 

[Hitch]

That graph works out about the same as the figures i have got. Cheers MAlcolm.

This frequency thing, a DA sander would have a much higher frequency than a 10kg breaker....?

The A(8) after the magnitudes... whats that mean? Average, 8 hrs...?

 

[malcolm]

The A(8) isn't defined in the booklet, but I read it as an average over 8 hours.

Ignore what I said about frequency. I don't know for sure how the numbers are worked out for each tool, but thinking about it they must already be normalised against frequency (have frequency taken into account).

 

[madkayaker]

the difference in specs is the different type of vibrations. some just measure the vibration in one plane others take into account the fact that the tool will move in all directions i think it have been brought bout by the different testing standards used world wide. i will try to find the file i have on it. A plant do a very good booklet on it and will send it out if you ask them. (i bet others do as well) as for trying to get vibration level from DIY kit unlikely

 

[Pete.]

Also consider that even though you can get gel-filled gloves, and they DO make a difference because you can feel it, there's no allowance for anything like that which mitigates the effects made in the regs. So even if you were to wear the vibration-damping gloves and suffered no harm whatsoever, you still have to stick to the times.

I think it's because trying to work out a schedule for work using such things would be near-impossible, as their effectiveness must surely degrade with use. I know they are bloody expensive!

 

[Chipper]

Timely post, I'm getting arm problems again. Had an op before, my sister had severe problems with carpal tunnel, and I once worked on a database of miners who had Vibration White Finger. So i've seen how nasty this can be. Anyway - starting looking at anti-vibe gloves but then found this:

"Gloves marketed as ‘anti-vibration’, which aim to isolate the wearer’s hands from the effects of vibration, are available commercially. There are several different types, but many are only suitable for certain tasks, they are not particularly effective at reducing the frequency-weighted vibration associated with risk of HAVS and they can increase the vibration at some frequencies. It is not usually possible to assess the vibration reduction provided in use by anti-vibration gloves, so you should not generally rely on them to provide protection from vibration."
http://www.hse.gov.uk/vibration/hav/campaign/fabrication/warmclothing.htm

Anyone got an opinion or reccomendation on such gloves with ref to grinders? I notice one of my cheapies in particular gives the hand/arm some bother. Was hoping gloves might help; if not, I'll stop using the cheapies and put up with much disc changing on my Hitachi.

 

[Pete.]

Yes that's the official line. Having worked a breaker for many hours wearing them I can tell you there's a marked difference in how your hands feel at the end than if you wore normal gloves.

 

[Chipper]

Hi Pete. Didn't mean to doubt your prev post there by the way, just on reading around it seems certain types or makes suit certain tools better. With the prices of the things, a recc on a pair good for grinders could save much wallet bother...

Although it may be as effective and as cheap to buy another quality grinder... and use quality consumables with it instead.

 

[stucktoweld]

Well Here's a query then guys
I have a old stone and rubble wall that I'm cleaning the paint off the ash render
the paint is a mix of lime wash and plastic paint.I'm cleaning off about 50 years of different paint. So from a HAV perspective If I use a needle scaler only a few minutes a day.If I use a pick hammer should be worse, If I use a chisel hammer short time more wall falls off.
Hire someone in to do the job 32 men 15 mins a day each £3200 per day even if I get them to do other things like weed the garden

Oh by the way I have about another 20 walls do £640000 may as well buy a new house
O'well its back to the plough and oxen then

I suppose theirs a logic in here somewhere otherwise we really are back to the plough guys don't forget also in those days you were old if you lived to 45

 

[Sam]

I suppose theirs a logic in here somewhere otherwise we really are back to the plough guys don't forget also in those days you were old if you lived to 45

Nowadays you live past 45 but have white finger, I know what I would prefer or office workers could sell their welders and leave the honest days work to others.

 

[malcolm]

I make the sds hammer drill (10.5m/s2) trigger time almost 2 hours max exposure time... one of the grinders, (5.5m/s2) almost 6 hours max exposure.

Just occurred to me - was it someone from HSE doing the training? They do a lot of their own testing of equipment but don't publish the results. It's possible the figures they used were from their own data rather than manufacturer's data.

There are 2 threads going on here. There is nobody stopping you using a needle scaler all day if you want to stucktoweld. If employees were forced to do it all day it might be bad and employers might have to consider alternative methods (blasting maybe). Those 20 year olds in my previous post in this thread only used needle scalers for 2 years. For their next 60 years every penny of Sam's hard working taxes will be supporting them as well as the taxes from the rest of us in this thread. That's a bit daft for the sake of cheap tools (with better ones they might have contributed to the economy for another 4 years or so), and daft work practices without which they might have contributed for 40 years.

 

[Hitch]

No Malcolm, one of our office staff, no training, just a few shets of paper atm.

Just checked a few more figures, seems theres a few that are right, and plenty that are wron, some way over, some under. All my numbers are from the manufactures websites.

One was two 9" grinders, both the same make, different models. The manual covers both models, yet hes got 2 figures for them, one is 4.9, other 6.5....in th manual i found it says 2.5

 

[stucktoweld]

Sorry Malc
I didn't want to sound facetious
I believe that mindfull use of modern technology is very useful and that HSE assessments can be unreal world. (see the volcanic ash issue current news)

Technique, proper training variable and controlled limited use is the correct route forward. also Vibration damage to tissue will be reduced by light firm grip of tool, correct posture. Smoking and alcohol increase the risk

I personally have helped people recover from potentially life time damage from RSI By the correct non invasive treatment combined with lifestyle advise. These people all worked in the IT and Customer service industry. However the refusal of the company's to allow them to leave desk for calls of nature means that some of them will never collect their pensions I'm afraid to say

On my needle gun use for 1 day wall clean easily. I followed All of my own advise above I expect not long term adverse effects

Now when it comes to the rendering or plastering that always hurts There is now easy way I know of that isn't really- really messy

So I look at that its all a matter of perspective technology can be good but we have to view the issues very intelligently (something I think HSE losses sight of easily) As the Chinese philosophers say "wisdom is knowledge in action"