A sight for sore eyes

Steve, the guidance for lifting is "whatever you feel comfortable with". Some people can quite comfortably lift 30-40kg loads all day, others could not lift 15kg. Age, size, physique and yes sex are all variables so a rule limiting weight to lift is not practicable.

The main requirement is that the operation be risk-assessed and that mechanical mean be used wherever possible. It's not acceptable for example to expect 3 men to shift 100 kilos where a forklift could do the same job.

P.S. there was a trial done some years ago where a supplier reduced cement bags to 15kg weight. All that happened is people carried 2x 15kg bags together instead of 1x25kg bag. It made the situation worse. Nowadays of course they are mostly 20kg bags.

Pete.

At a younger age I used to hump stationary engines about my yard but as I got older I used sack barrows and the point of balance to move stuff around and now a mate comes around to help me struggle, does this stuff do anything for mid sixties gents

Martin P

Edited By martin perman on 21/03/2020 17:30:04

oops

Edited By martin perman on 21/03/2020 17:29:22

Edited By martin perman on 21/03/2020 17:30:33

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The reason there are no legal limits is because they're counter-productive! Instead employers have been made responsible for the Health & Safety of their employees in all circumstances. What's appropriate to a fit well-trained young man isn't sensible for an obese grandad or a slightly built young lady. And just because a chap can swing 50kg on to his shoulder doesn't mean it's safe for him to carry that weight up a 60 foot ladder. People aren't machines, they have to be considered as individuals, hence only Guidelines are issued. Depending on the circumstances it can be OK to lift 50kg, or wrong to lift 10kg.

In the absence of limits it can't be claimed it was OK to cripple an employee because he was working within a government regulation. Instead, reasonable precautions must be taken to ensure all activities are safe. The employer is required to identify a 'Competent Person' to decide what's allowed, not some chap on the Internet!

H&S Training is often more about the need to take responsibility and engage brain than rules and restrictions. The point is often missed by chaps not paying attention because they've done the job donkey's years and aren't gonna be told anything by some bureaucrat. But the H&S requirement is to think about health and safety before doing anything, whether that be lifting, wiring up a machine, refuelling a jet aircraft, welding a petrol tank, or shutting down No 4 Reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Thinking time can be almost zero when an experienced team do repeat work. It should be considerably longer whenever inexperienced people are asked to tackle unfamiliar jobs.

Dave

The last time I was involved with weight lifting and carrying the elf & safety requirements were put on the individual as in ' do not lift and carry any heavier than you can comfortably manage' thus if you hurt yourself it was your fault for overextending yourself.

The carrying a body for 25 yards is correct and we do have female firefighters here, I failed when I tried back in the 90s' due to partial colour blindness

Nothing to do with the ladies, but more to do with loss of strength. We have a caravan and we use 7Kg Calor gas bottles. Unfortunately Calor give the weight of the empty bottle in lbs, but the heaviest I have come across was a 20lb bottle, maybe slightly more. This equates to about 9.1 Kg which along with the gas makes it about 16Kg. We also have a good quality leisure battery which weighs 18Kg. Both of these do now take a certain amount of puff to move. And yet, I can remember years ago when we used to go camping with a 35Kg bottle! Oh for a new body!

Peter G. Shaw.

p.s. Asking for a new body reminds me of when I turned up at my chemo centre to collect my next set of pills, and being somewhat, well a lot actually, out of puff, I said I needed a new body - only to be told by the nurses to get to the back of the queue after them!

... & Crucifies the over 50's...

George.

Exo skeleton

one of these could restore us to the power of our youth

Mike

I started work 4/4/61 my 15th birthday and the first job I was given was to move cwt bags of cement.I thought my nuts were in my throat.Getting them of the floor was the worse part,I did get stronger and have carried bricks and blocks on my shoulder all my working life and my right shoulder is 1.5" lower than my left.When out of work I took a job as a malster and malt used to go to the Isle of Jura for whisky on a flat back truck ,The sacks were 18st and one man took them onto his back of the elevator walked forewards and turned and dropped the bags into position until the truck was full.A broken shear pin in the kiln spilt barley into the heat room below and we had to shovel it into 18st bags and carry it up six steps two men lifted it onto my back and I struggled up the steps with assistance from behind we only did this once ,it was to much.A labourer I had worked on a farm and said chick peas were in 21 st bags.I am all for the alteration of the lifting arrangements in the building trade and anyone who hankers after the old ways is barmy.

Frank

We did have a women worked at Nestle. She joined the Fire service in Castleford. She was super fit & I mean that in that she ran miles a day. One day the fire service was called to the boiler house. It was good to see her again.

My original point was how many women are Bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers etc.

Steve.

Males are stronger than females. That is clear and evident from all aspects of life. It doesn’t need an expert to see, and understand, that.

However there is an overlap because there are always some stronger and some weaker than the strength means for each sex (the gaussian curves overlap).

It was the simple basic reason why males were the ’hunters’ and females were the ’gatherers’ (and one would not expect pregnant women to be chasing wild animals!).

Many trades operate on piecework rates, making it clear that males are more adapted to that type of work. Of course there will be some ladies in each trade, but not very many who partake in all those trades - there are not so many males that do that - but they are called ‘general builders’ and do not try to compete with the specialists of any one trade.

These simple facts of life are evident throughout society and it should not be difficult to observe these differences, so it doesn’t really need a whole lot of discussion, I would have thought... just think back in history - Marie Curie was just one example from about 150 years ago? Only 60 years ago, when I was growing up, most farmer’s wives worked on the land at times - as well as working in the home - well, my Mum did.

Here in NZ they make the women tough. At our local farmers' supplier, I occasionally buy a 25 kg bag of gypsum, or two. It's usual for the young female assistant to wheel the step-ladder/platform to the appropriate high shelf, scurry up the ladder and retrieve them. They look a bit surprised when I chivalrously insist that I carry them (the bags of gypsum, I mean...) out to my vehicle. Even though I may look like Methuselah's dad, I can still throw 25kg around easily. I used to find 1cwt bags an easy lift, but those days are gone... I was told by an elderly Scottish farmer that, when he was young, 1 1/2 cwt sacks of grain were the norm. Calculations have been done regarding the speed that the ancient Greek triremes must have gone, to cover the distances recored in ancient texts. It's suggested that the oarsmen (slaves) were far stronger, and had far more stamina than modern athletes. We've gone soft!

Edited By Kiwi Bloke on 22/03/2020 09:42:35

Edited By Kiwi Bloke on 22/03/2020 09:47:52

Tell that to the widows! In the UK, ladies outlive men by an average of 4½ years...

This finding might be relevant too: 'A 2014 meta-analysis of sex differences in scholastic achievement published in the journal of Psychological Bulletin found females outperformed males in teacher-assigned school marks throughout elementary, junior/middle, high school and at both undergraduate and graduate university level.'

In other words, men are strong in the arm but thick in the head. Plenty of evidence for that in the Duffer Household...

Dave

They must be. That's why the men are dead and their widows continue with life.

Still no explanation why everything is invented by men though.

Martin.

Miss Shillings orifice wasn't

Regards Ian.

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If we gonna have Ladies on the bulding site does that mean that male pedestrians can wolf-whistle at them?

No, but it'd be OK the other way around.

Thats obvious the males never gave the females the chance and to a degree still dont today, I for one have no issues with ladies doing "our" jobs and better at it if that lady model engineer is anything to go by, they have naturally one thing we have to learn and thats patience, just ask your wives, girl friends etc.

Martin P