OSHA Gearing Up for Random Home Building Site Inspections in Arkansas and Other States
In a departure from its usual practice of focusing its resources on commercial projects and inspecting residential construction sites mainly when there are complaints, OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) said that it will be stepping up its random visits to home building sites in Arkansas and a number of other states before the end of this year.
In a Sept. 1 story appearing on Today’s THV Television, Bryon Earls, president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Little Rock, said that his members are already responding to OSHA’s new program to improve the safety of residential construction sites, and he has been making a special effort to educate those in the industry about their responsibilities.
“A few months ago, if you would have gone out to a residential site, you wouldn’t have seen anyone wearing hard hats,” Earls said. But now, “you may see changes in signs posted at job sites that say, ‘warning, no trespassing;’ ‘authorized personnel only;’ or ‘hard hat area.’”
Other safety precautions that are increasingly being taken include the use of hard hats and harnesses to protect workers from falling off roofs.