Ladder Safety Inspections: The Essential First Step

All ladders should be inspected before each use. It doesn’t take long to check out a ladder to make sure it’s safe to use. But those few minutes could be the most important of a worker’s life.

Train employees to inspect ladders properly. Make sure they know what to check. For example, they should check to see that:

• Steps or rungs are in good repair and free of mud, grease, oil, or sticky substances
• Side rails have no cracks or splits
• Metal parts are lubricated
• Rope is not worn or frayed
• Spreaders or other locking devices are in place and working properly
• Splinters or sharp edges have been filed down
• Safety feet are solid and in place
• Metal ladders are free of dents and bent parts

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Ladders should also be inspected following any tipovers or possible damage to a ladder that has been struck by something, hit something, or been dropped.

What to Do with a Defective Ladder

When employees identify a safety problem with a ladder during an inspection, they should not use it. Instead, they should remove it from service and tag it to make sure nobody else uses it. For example, they could write “DO NOT USE” in big bold letters on a tag and attach it to the ladder where it can be easily seen.

Also make sure employees understand that they should not try to repair ladders themselves. If they just report the problem. maintenance will handle it from there. A person qualified to perform repairs will fix the ladder if possible, or it will be replaced with a new ladder.

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Examine Safety Meeting Repros completely at our expense. Send no money. Take no risk. Get a FREE report. Get more info.

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Training for Under $6 a Session!

Whether you’re training employees on ladder safety or a whole range of other vital workplace safety and health topics, you have a friend in BLR. We can make training easy for you—and inexpensive.

Our Safety Meeting Repros provides you with 50 completely turnkey safety meeting modules, each responsive to a key OSHA regulation, with trainee materials in reproducible form—all for under $6 a session!

A supervisor on any shift can easily run the training session. All the trainer has to do is check off the outline items as he or she proceeds through the meeting, and trainees won’t miss a single point of importance. Then the trainer can follow up with the fully prepared quiz (with instantly available answers) and illustrated handouts that also come with each lesson.

Presto! You’ve completed a full training cycle, with little more work than running a copier, at a cost equivalent of under $6 a session.

We don’t think you can appreciate how much this program can ease your training task without looking it over. We invite you to do so at no cost (we’ll even pay any return shipping) and no risk. Here’s how you can arrange a trial run, at our expense.