Excavation entry
I currently have 6 field crews and we do a high volume in new residential construction. With this comes completing foundation locations on a daily bases for multiple crews on multiple sites in open excavations where almost every unit has a 10′ basement.
The contractors usually don’t have much room to bench or slope their trenches back, leaving close to vertical walls. At a recent crew meeting, I instructed my field guys not to work in trenches or climb/walk foundation walls. Now I am getting push back from the clients. They maintain that they need us to mark finished grading on the foundation walls and locate the foundation before it’s backfilled so they can get their back fill inspections done.
My first priority is protecting my guys from falls or wall collapses. My second priority is not getting tagged with heavy fines for violations of OSHA standards. When I was with a former employer, a Crew Chief decided to walk a foundation wall and fell, landing on the concrete floor in the basement. He obviously got hurt pretty bad, prompting an OSHA work related injury investigation and the firm paid a $10,000 fine for a $350 foundation location.
I’m curious as to hear howall of you approach this situation. I have personally seen a pipe installer killed in a trench collapse not 10′ from where I was standing while I was running the gun and can tell you that it wasn’t pretty.
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