Working in cold weather

This talk is about cold weather, ice, and dark mornings on this job. It is not the heat talk, and it is not a substitute for the slips talk or the working-at-height talk. HSE's outdoor working page says the weather can have a serious impact on health if the risks have not been managed, straight away or over a longer time. It can also affect whether someone can keep safe, including when they are handling machinery.

The indoor figures are easy to misread, so I am saying what they are and what they are not. HSE's temperature pages say the minimum temperature in an indoor workplace should normally be at least 16°C, or 13°C if much of the work involves rigorous physical effort. Those figures are for workplaces inside buildings. An open site, a scaffold, or a garden is not that room. HSE's cold stress page says it does not provide guidance on cold stress, and points back to the broad advice on cold weather. I am not going to invent a temperature at which this site must stop. There is not one on those pages.

For cold environments outdoors, HSE's list is short. Make sure the personal protective equipment issued is appropriate. Provide mobile facilities for warming up, and soup or hot drinks. Introduce more frequent rest breaks. Consider delaying the work until a warmer time of year, without compromising on safety. Make sure people can recognise the early symptoms of cold stress. The examples HSE gives are a cough or body aches. I have not added shivering, or any other sign, because that page does not list them. If someone has those symptoms, we treat it as a reason to get them warm and to tell the person in charge, not as a reason to push on.

Ice is a slip, and the construction slips page is the one I am using. Wet or slippery surfaces should be treated with stone for mud, or grit for ice, or given a temporary covering. Signpost slippery areas, and make sure footwear with a good grip is worn. The workplace safety law page says you must minimise risks from snow and ice on outdoor routes, for example by using salt or sand and sweeping them. A walkway that was fine at 7am can be a sheet of ice after a shower. Look at it again before the next trip with a load. The slips talk covers what we leave in the walkway. This talk covers what the weather puts on it.

Dark mornings are a lighting problem as well as a cold one. The workplace law page says you must provide good light, and well-lit outside areas, for pedestrians and for work such as loading and unloading at night. HSE's construction guidance, HSG150, says every part of a site that is in use should, as far as possible, be arranged so natural light is there for people to see the work and to move about. Where natural light is not enough, provide artificial light. Shadows can hide a hazard, including a blade or a stair. If the main light failing would put someone at risk, provide emergency lighting. Torches can be the emergency light where automatic lighting is not possible. Escape routes need to stay lit while people are on site.

HSE's workplace transport lighting sheet is the one for vehicles. There should be adequate lighting of site locations and vehicles so people can work safely. Roads, manoeuvring areas and yards should be sufficiently lit. As a minimum, light the junctions, the areas around plant and buildings, the pedestrian routes, and the places where loading or unloading happens. The sheet says winter work often carries on well into the hours of darkness. Put lighting high and angle it downwards, so it does not create glare and shadows. Vehicles on site should use lights or beacons in darkness or poor visibility, so other vehicles can see them. Signs should be lit for night or bad weather, or be reflective. A strong change of light between inside and outside a building needs thinking about too.

High-visibility clothing is part of being seen, not a substitute for the light. HSE's clothing sheet says the choice depends on the light, including fog and snow. The darker the site, the more high-visibility clothing is needed. People at particular risk from moving vehicles, such as a marshaller, may need full-body high-visibility clothing, not only a waistcoat. It has to work in the day and at night. Fluorescent yellow is the colour the sheet says is likely to stand out. Retroreflective material is what makes someone visible in headlights in the dark. Cold-weather clothing should have those qualities, or be wearable under a high-visibility layer. It has to fit, and it must not fight the other PPE. The sheet cites BS EN 471, with class 3 the highest area of conspicuous material and class 1 the lowest, and a second number for how well it shows in headlights. A CE mark means the clothing met the manufacturing rules. It does not mean it is right for this yard.

Cold is also a reason to look at the rest of the PPE. HSE's PPE overview lists extremes of heat or cold as a remaining risk that PPE may have to cover, after other controls. The page on types of PPE names climate and extreme temperatures for the head, temperature for the hands, and temperature and slipping for the feet, including soles that can be thermally insulating. HSE's construction clothing answers say that in cold weather it is important to keep warm, especially when working at height, because the cold can distract someone and lead to a loss of concentration. The workplace law page says drying facilities for wet work clothes should be provided where that is practical and necessary. Wet gloves are not the control.

Before we start today: who has walked the route, is there grit where there is ice, are the lights on for the junctions and the pedestrian way, and are the vehicles showing lights if it is still dark? Who knows where they can warm up, and where the hot drink is? If the weather means we cannot do the job without compromising safety, we delay it. We do not invent a number and call it HSE's.