ppe Powered Pruner PPE UK

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

An interesting, but perhaps not surprising, holding response from HSE here in that essentially whilst they too consider the risk of a cut to the leg to be 'very unlikely', thereby not necessitating / justifying chainsaw trousers use, if the employer's risk assessment process concludes otherwise then you are obliged either to do so...or get him to review it (this should be done in conjunction with yourself as the operator anyway, i.e.  consultation and cooperation. )

 

Cheers,

Paul

PS In fairness, I'm not surprised the Tree Services Team wear chainsaw trousers whilst using them but this is doubtless entirely coincidental as they wear them to work anyway...hence it is normalized.   

[Spruce Pirate]

For what it's worth, when I did the certificate for the powered pole-pruner the assessor asked if we needed to wear saw trousers when using it.  He was quite happy with the reply that we didn't need to, but probably would be as likely to be using it in conjunction with a saw on the ground anyway.  Don't have that in writing, obviously.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

12 hours ago, chrism3513 said:

Is there no such thing as common sense anymore? It would surely be impossible to cut your own leg with a power pruner. I wouldn't cope working in an environment with people like your management!

You’d need the legs of a giraffe on the body of a midget with a 3 year olds mental capacity (not an entirely unlikely set of circumstances in the Arb industry) to stand any chance of sustaining a lower body injury from a pole saw!  

[Stephen Blair]

I nearly did it! And the pole was at full extension! I have used the hard top roof of my mogs that I’ve owned for a platform for trimming large hedges over the years. What I would usually do is trim what I could from the ground, park the mog beside it, stick my step ladders against the mog, put the pole saw at full reach with the hedge cutter head or saw on. Lean it against the mog, go up the ladders, stand on the mog and pull the pole saw up and into the air.

I’d been doing this for over 10 years, no issues!

1 day I leant the polesaw against the mog with it running, I went up the ladder, grabbed the alloy extension and started to pull it towards myself to the 1 side, the triggers got jammed between the step ladder and mog, both orange levers got pressed and the saw picked up full revs with the saw around my knee hip area!

I shat myself, almost picked up my Darwin Award and didn’t believe that just happened.

 

[Mark Bolam]

But were you wearing chainsaw trousers?

[Spruce Pirate]

16 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

I nearly did it! And the pole was at full extension! I have used the hard top roof of my mogs that I’ve owned for a platform for trimming large hedges over the years. What I would usually do is trim what I could from the ground, park the mog beside it, stick my step ladders against the mog, put the pole saw at full reach with the hedge cutter head or saw on. Lean it against the mog, go up the ladders, stand on the mog and pull the pole saw up and into the air.

I’d been doing this for over 10 years, no issues!

1 day I leant the polesaw against the mog with it running, I went up the ladder, grabbed the alloy extension and started to pull it towards myself to the 1 side, the triggers got jammed between the step ladder and mog, both orange levers got pressed and the saw picked up full revs with the saw around my knee hip area!

I shat myself, almost picked up my Darwin Award and didn’t believe that just happened.

 

I've done similar to this, but without catching the trigger, I'll be more careful if I'm doing it again! 

 

However, as far as the H&S officer in the OP is concerned she's not going to be happy with:

   a) leaning a ladder against something like a mog

   b) working from the top of a vehicle

   c) leaving a pole-pruner running while climbing from a) to b)

   d) pulling the pole-pruner up while it is running

so can't see the OP getting the chance to replicate the circumstances.

[Husqvarna King]

1 hour ago, Mark Bolam said:

But were you wearing chainsaw trousers?

Didn't think they had bollock protection anyway ?