Power tools have largely taken over from hand tools all around the world, because they allow individuals to get more work done in an alloted space of time. Power tools work far more quickly than hand tools and without the operative having to expend a lot of energy having to turn a handle or push a saw.
However, the improved productivity that power tools deliver comes at a price: 1] you need to pay for the electricity that drives the equipment and 2] there is an increased danger to the operative’s health and safety. The price of the electricity should be more than easily covered by the increased productivity, but health and safety is often overlooked until it is too late.
People appear to not comprehend the potential dangers of an inexperienced person using a power tool. For instance, a slip with a hand saw, normally means an ugly joint, but a slip with a power saw can cost a finger; a miss whilst hammering a nail in can cost a bruised finger or an ugly dent, but a slip with a nail gun can be like having a bullet in the leg.
This is the reason why insurance companies have made it imperative for companies employing trades people to send their workers on health and safety courses. Claims from inexpert workers was getting ridiculous as inexpert trades people abandonned their old hand tool in favour of the powered option.
It caused a great deal of fuss in the Eighties and Nineties in the building industry among employers and workers alike to have to send people on courses about how to use power tools. In Britain, employers were not allowed to let a carpenter use a rotary saw, for example, unless he or she could prove that they had been taught to use one. Most people thought that the health and safety people had gone too far.
But there were fewer accidents; less time off work due to injury and not so many claims against the insurance firms.
There was huge opposition in our building firm from the workforce, when we declared that nobody could sign out a power tool unless he/she had a current safety certificate to prove training in the use of that particular piece of equipment.
We also had a joinery shop, where traditionally every carpenter could go to make anything he needed. Then this policy came in and just one carpenter out of forty was permitted to use the tools. All of a sudden there was a rush to get safety certificates. The new regulations had hurt people’s pride.
They felt that they were being told that they did not know their trade, but when they were disqualified from using power tools, they were made to look like inexperienced apprentices again. So there was a rush to acquire a certificate and power tool companies would send a safety specialist to the workshop to train all the relevant tradesmen in the use of their power tools free of charge and hand out certificates.
Then our company decided to get their ISO 9000 certificate and power tools had to be given certificates of inspection as well. So now we had to employ someone to look after the power tools.
Just tradesmen with certificates of competence could sign out a power tool and a power tool could only be signed out if it had a certificate to prove that it had been passed ’safe to use’ within the last two months. All power tools had to have a certificate of reliability attached to it, a set of safety rules and a pair of safety glasses. That covered the firm from accusations of negligence.
That was 15-20 years ago in the construction industry in the UK. I am not saying all this as a history lesson, but more to point out that people can go to a store and purchase or hire very dangerous power tools without having to establish competence. Contractors at work have to establish that they and the tools are up to the job, but the public does not.
I am not recommending a new layer of bureaucracy, but I do want to make individuals aware of the risk of not knowing how to use power tools properly and without even the most basic safety equipment.
Do not use power tools without safety spectacles is the first rule. Shield your eyes from splinters and flying debris at all costs. A professional would, so so ought you.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with Uvex Safety Glasses. If you would like to know more, please visit our site at Safety Glasses Bifocal