# Scaffolding Best Practices?



## StradivariusBone (Aug 18, 2021)

So a few months back I was involved with a lighting upgrade at a church I do part-time work for. We were replacing a bunch of fresnels over the stage with some LED fixtures and the trim height is on the order of 35'ish feet, dead hung of course. There's no ramp access to the stage so getting anything in there that can hit that ceiling is rough. The solution we came up with was to rent scaffolding. We found a local rental place that had a kit, reading the manual it was designed for this height and we followed the instructions to a T. It definitely was a bit hair-raising assembling and disassembling it. However we were able to utilize a scissor lift to at least raise the top level pieces and pass them over (I don't think that runs afoul of recommendations, no one left the scissor to go to the scaffolding).

Anyway, I have limited experience with this stuff, and was wondering what we could do to be safer in the future or if we were in the right ballpark. The OSHA papers claim that if railings are installed you don't have to worry about fall-arrest, but even still I wouldn't know where to clip in in this circumstance in any event. 

We recently had to get up there again to replace a power cable that failed for some reason possibly a bad connector, that's another whole story. And we found a Snorkel mast lift that could hit it at the max trim. The custodial team there built a ramp to get it up on the stage deck this time. So we may never have to mess with the scaffolding again, but I'd like the input either way.


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## RonHebbard (Aug 18, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> So a few months back I was involved with a lighting upgrade at a church I do part-time work for. We were replacing a bunch of fresnels over the stage with some LED fixtures and the trim height is on the order of 35'ish feet, dead hung of course. There's no ramp access to the stage so getting anything in there that can hit that ceiling is rough. The solution we came up with was to rent scaffolding. We found a local rental place that had a kit, reading the manual it was designed for this height and we followed the instructions to a T. It definitely was a bit hair-raising assembling and disassembling it. However we were able to utilize a scissor lift to at least raise the top level pieces and pass them over (I don't think that runs afoul of recommendations, no one left the scissor to go to the scaffolding).
> 
> Anyway, I have limited experience with this stuff, and was wondering what we could do to be safer in the future or if we were in the right ballpark. The OSHA papers claim that if railings are installed you don't have to worry about fall-arrest, but even still I wouldn't know where to clip in in this circumstance in any event.
> 
> ...


In the days before scissor and personnel lifts were common, we'd often order what our scaffold suppliers called hay wagon wheels. This got us much larger wheels with air filled tires; two straight and two steerable. A yoke to pull and steer was attached to the steerable end. For ~3 months of my electrical apprentice ship I played ground rigger, conduit bender, and scaffold motivator for my journeyman who was ~40' up installing conduit, boxes, wiring and 347 volt high-bay lighting fixtures. 
Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## Van (Aug 18, 2021)

A lot scaffold places we deal with won't let renters install their own anymore which is why we have our own and all of our installers are OSHA certified. 
I'm not Scaffold certified so I'm not going to offer advice BUT a lot of our work sites require harness on any scaffold other than a dancefloor.


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## MarshallPope (Aug 18, 2021)

I'll just say that, on a single stack of that height, I'd definitely be asking for ladder uprights rather than the walkthrough ones


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 18, 2021)

MarshallPope said:


> I'll just say that, on a single stack of that height, I'd definitely be asking for ladder uprights rather than the walkthrough ones


Yeah, that was a lesson learned. We also repositioned decks so I could climb inside the frame. I didnt feel like tipping was even close, but transitioning from top/ladder and ladder/top was much easier on the inside of the scaffolding.


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## almorton (Aug 19, 2021)

This side of the pond you always climb inside the tower, NEVER outside.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 19, 2021)

Van said:


> a lot of our work sites require harness on any scaffold


Do you clip in to the scaffold or to a life line installed to the structure you're working on/near?


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## Van (Aug 19, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> Do you clip in to the scaffold or to a life line installed to the structure you're working on/near?


I've noticed the guys bitching about the varying standards from one place to the next. Since I'm not in the field anymore I can only relate what I've heard. Some places it's clipped to structure or Lifeline with "no more than XX' lanyard" others it seems to be railings "with xx' lanyard." Some companies are much more restrictive with their safety standards than OSHA.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 19, 2021)

OSHA's guide is honestly a bit vague here. I guess it's assuming that most usage on supported scaffolding is going to be adjacent to a structure where it's easy to set up a life line. The main takeaway I saw when reading it was that supported scaffolding with guardrails installed does not require personal fall arrest.


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## MNicolai (Aug 19, 2021)

> 1926.451(g)(1)(iv)
> Each employee on a self-contained adjustable scaffold shall be protected by a guardrail system (with minimum 200 pound toprail capacity) when the platform is supported by the frame structure, and by both a personal fall arrest system and a guardrail system (with minimum 200 pound toprail capacity) when the platform is supported by ropes;


OSHA does not require fall protection if you have guardrails. Not to say an employer or worksite may not have a more stringent rule.

_However..._

That scaffold system is non-compliant with OSHA. The highest fully-planked level does not have guardrails, and if someone is standing on the upper single plank, they can easily fall off that and slide out of the scaffold overall.


> 1926.451(b)(1)
> Each platform on all working levels of scaffolds shall be fully planked or decked between the front uprights and the guardrail supports as follows:
> 
> 1926.451(b)(1)(i)
> ...



That scaffold is also missing the required toeboards.


> 1926.451(h)(2)
> Where there is a danger of tools, materials, or equipment falling from a scaffold and striking employees below, the following provisions apply:
> 
> 1926.451(h)(2)(i)
> ...



And looks like it may exceed the appropriate Base:Height ratio. That scaffold appears to have a total height, including guardrails and outriggers, of roughly 30 or 32', in which case the smallest dimension of the base would need to be about 8 ft. I'm just eyeballing it but the smallest dimension of the base appears to be closer to 6 ft.


> 1926.451(c)(1)
> Supported scaffolds with a height to base width (including outrigger supports, if used) ratio of more than four to one (4:1) shall be restrained from tipping by guying, tying, bracing, or equivalent means, as follows:


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 20, 2021)

Excellent points and observations, Mike. That top platform did have guardrails around the front, but there was nothing behind it. It was a call I made because of the height of that position. Going up one and decking the top would have been higher than I needed, but ultimately would have been the correct way to do things. Complicating things, none of the planks had trap doors, so the only means to climb inside was to remove a whole plank, which again not ideal. 

As for the toeboard, I had spotters below that stayed well away and restricted other people from wandering in while I was up working which I think meets that requirement. 

We did measure the base and it did meet the 4:1. That was a big point I raised when they started planning for this because their original plan was to go to a box store and rent enough scaffolding to get up there. Interestingly, when they did inquire about that Orange refused to rent them the scaffolding which I thought was reassuring in some degree. I pointed out that we needed to find a scaffold designed for the height and that's where we ended up with this. The manuals for this particular scaffold specified that the height was achievable. 

I definitely will ask for a better access method though, trap doors seem in order.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 20, 2021)

This was plan B after we lost a few LEDs to a bad powercon. Don't ask how they got it on that stage


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## MNicolai (Aug 20, 2021)

Those one-man lifts are quite portable for their weight.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 20, 2021)

I wish they had a way for it to climb stairs as easy as it fits into a pickup. I like the older Genie instructional videos. The narrator always sounds like he's about 5 seconds away from calling you a knucklehead and berating you for lifting with your back.


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## Van (Aug 20, 2021)

MNicolai said:


> Those one-man lifts are quite portable for their weight.



Reading the manual, HA!


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## JohnD (Aug 20, 2021)

I was thinking about posting that pic of a MEWP on a forklift, but (sigh) it wasn't worth the effort.


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## cbrandt (Aug 20, 2021)

JohnD said:


> I was thinking about posting that pic of a MEWP on a forklift, but (sigh) it wasn't worth the effort.


It has forklift pockets on the bottom, what else are you supposed to use them for?


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## Van (Aug 20, 2021)

I believe he is referring to this one:


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 21, 2021)

And it looks like they left the bucket no less. Ingenuity!


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## MarshallPope (Aug 21, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> And it looks like they left the bucket no less. Ingenuity!


To be fair, I'd want to get off as soon as possible as well.


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## David Ashton (Aug 25, 2021)

As a licensed scaffolder in Australia that set up is horrendous, we would use aluminium scaffold built one level at a time with internal ladders between levels, but the only reason to use a scaffold would be because the floor could not carry the weight of a hoist.


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## DBL (Aug 25, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> So a few months back I was involved with a lighting upgrade at a church I do part-time work for. We were replacing a bunch of fresnels over the stage with some LED fixtures and the trim height is on the order of 35'ish feet, dead hung of course. There's no ramp access to the stage so getting anything in there that can hit that ceiling is rough. The solution we came up with was to rent scaffolding. We found a local rental place that had a kit, reading the manual it was designed for this height and we followed the instructions to a T. It definitely was a bit hair-raising assembling and disassembling it. However we were able to utilize a scissor lift to at least raise the top level pieces and pass them over (I don't think that runs afoul of recommendations, no one left the scissor to go to the scaffolding).
> 
> Anyway, I have limited experience with this stuff, and was wondering what we could do to be safer in the future or if we were in the right ballpark. The OSHA papers claim that if railings are installed you don't have to worry about fall-arrest, but even still I wouldn't know where to clip in in this circumstance in any event.
> 
> ...


No one has mentioned the lack of a gooser bar (also called grouser bar) which connects the diagonally opposite verticals and maintains the squareness of the frame. Generally a full set of LOCKED IN planks will prevent the problem but during assembly the frame can rack and possibly collapse. I've seen this happen on a 30 ft rolling tower which proceeded to crash through a scrim and cyc. Fortunately no one was hurt.


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## Chase P. (Aug 25, 2021)

I love this discussion. Scaffold often gets overlooked in this age of Genie lifts.

So as far as harnessing on this setup, I guess you could span set around that beam, provided that it’s been rated for that sort of thing. I’d honestly be pretty worried about an escape strategy here, since there’s not an adequate ladder or genie on that level already. What do you do here if the worst happens and you don’t just fall off, but pull the scaffold over? Unlikely, but maybe possible by the edge of the stage (or whatever ecclesiastical term applies).

I’m very wary of moving the scaffold when on top of it. When I was a baby stagehand, working occasionally in a black box, the LD fell when working alone at night. She was pulling the scaffold on it’s wheels by grabbing the grid while on top of it. No fall protection in sight. If I remember correctly, she had a really bad spine injury, and was lucky that was all. In her defense, she didn’t know outriggers for the scaffold were hidden behind costume racks in the attic.

One more quick fall pro experience, in my dinner theater days, the old LD insisted on buying a harness and lanyard, despite the grid being at 16’, and the access being 100% frame ladders. Legit idea, but she would harness up, climb the ladder, and hook the lanyard to the not-a-step at the top. I always thought it would be worse to fall and then have a ladder hit her.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 26, 2021)

David Ashton said:


> built one level at a time


I have to say, I'm not sure how else you would go about it.  I agree on the access though, that skinny ladder was not a good time. Hatches or stair units would be necessary in the future. Although we were able to get the mast MEWP up on the stage via a ramp this most recent time so hopefully we're done with that amount of scaffold. 


DBL said:


> No one has mentioned the lack of a gooser bar (also called grouser bar) which connects the diagonally opposite verticals and maintains the squareness of the frame. Generally a full set of LOCKED IN planks will prevent the problem but during assembly the frame can rack and possibly collapse.


I noticed this when we were disassembling actually. We were down to the last level and the wheels happened to be unlocked on one side and she went all cattywampus which made me realize how useful something like what you described would actually be. I can't imagine if that were to have happened with it fully assembled. 


Chase P. said:


> So as far as harnessing on this setup, I guess you could span set around that beam, provided that it’s been rated for that sort of thing


That was my thought as well. It's an I-beam surrounded in drywall. Surely the drywall would be ruined, but the truss would hold which is a great alternative to falling. 

As for moving it while on top? We did not do that. I locked each wheel myself before making the climb.


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## JohnD (Aug 26, 2021)

Hey kids, it's swerve time again. I love the term cattywampus but was curious about it, so here is this:







The Etymology of “Cattywampus”

“Cattywampus” (1834) has held a variety of meanings and spellings, including as an adverb (catawampusly) meaning “completely/utterly/avidly,” a name for a fantastical imp-li…



uselessetymology.com


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 26, 2021)

I've also heard/used cattywaller/cattawalla and cattycorner/cattacorner in similar manners. All referential to diagonal situations


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## Van (Aug 26, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> I've also heard/used cattywaller/cattawalla and cattycorner/cattacorner in similar manners. All referential to diagonal situations


Catterwaller, Now My grandpa always used that to describe loud and boisterous behavior, "You kids Stop all that Catterwallin' or I'm gonna come in there and knock you into the middle of next week". 'Course he h used Bohunkus and Hobuck a lot too. @JohnD might know those.


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## JohnD (Aug 26, 2021)

Bohunkus, yes, Hobuck, no.


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## Van (Aug 27, 2021)

JohnD said:


> Bohunkus, yes, Hobuck, no.


Hobuck, it's a Choctaw word. Up in your neck of the woods it's more Creek right?


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## JohnD (Aug 27, 2021)

Van said:


> Hobuck, it's a Choctaw word. Up in your neck of the woods it's more Creek right?


Osage and Otoe-Missouria.

EDIT: Oh yeah, to keep this au courant with CB, the Osage gave us Maria Tall Chief.


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