Safety in Powerwashing and Wood Restoration (Part One)
Time is money…. We all know it, and most run our businesses as efficient as possible looking for ways to wash a house faster, strip and stain a deck in minutes, and get one more house wash in before nightfall. With speed and haste, there may be inadvertent trade offs for project quality, avoidable risk taking and probably most importantly, personal safety.
There are a few questions that I would like to pose to industry professionals, specifically the independent contractors much like ourselves. If you are out of commission because of an illness or injury for four to six weeks in the midst of your busiest time of year, will your business survive? It you experience a fatal mishap, will your spouse and children be financially set? Can you afford twenty or thirty thousand in medical bills or even ten thousand in co-pays not covered by your medical insurance? I will go out on a limb to answer “no” to all of these questions for most of the contractors in our industry.
What I hope to present in the future to the Pressure Washing News readers is a multipart article addressing the health and safety issues, some hidden and some easily identified, that are present in part of our daily operations of our businesses. If you look at some of the accidents and injuries that occur in our profession, it is pretty evident that most are preventable with employment of two simple concepts; slowing down and using personal protective equipment.
I hope to get some input from the readers. Your questions, your concerns, your experiences, even past accidents or injuries that you have experienced or heard of, will provide a learning opportunity for all of us. I hope to focus on preventive measures and personal protective equipment with information on what to do if an injury occurs. You can relax. The names of contractors providing information about past injuries and experiences will not be published or revealed unless they have given written permission to do so.
The next article submission will offer an overview on the personal protective equipment and an introduction to the chemical hazards that we deal with in the course of providing services. If you have information that is relevant to this multipart series, please email it to mhjohnson@pwscleaning.com.
Mathew Johnson, President
Pressure Washing Services, Inc.
UAMCC Charter Member
Mathew, great article and presentation at the Northeast Seminar. This is something many people try not to think about as no one wants to think an accident can happen to them. the problem is, when it does happen, its too late to do anything proactive. After the seminar I went and bought all new cartridges for the face masks and mandated them as well as bought new face shields and PVC chem gloves for every truck. you really hit home. Safety cannot be an option.