How do you help your workers handle the heat? The industry’s safety directors have some practical ideas to share.
As temperatures rise and the summer sun beats down, ensuring the safety of your construction workers becomes a top priority. But what can you do?
AWCI member safety directors emphasize the importance of providing essential tools, such as cooling rags and electrolyte packets. But they also talk about planning, having good communication on the job site and training crews about proper hydration.
Workers in the heat will need adequate shade and extra breaks. Sometimes, crew leaders can send some team members to work in less hot areas of a structure. By implementing such administrative controls—adjusting work schedules and relocating workers—contractors can minimize the risk of heat-related incidents.
“OSHA envisions a programmatic standard that could require employers to create a plan to evaluate and control heat hazards in their workplace,” ACCSH meeting notes say.
Fundamentally, preparing for the heat means being flexible and taking proactive steps to keep workers safe. Here are 15 ideas you can put into practice today.
1) Identify your high priority job sites.
Jorge Vazquez, director of safety at Marek Brothers in Texas, says his firm prioritizes job sites by their potential for heat exposure.
By identifying work areas exposed to direct sunlight—sites that lack ventilation and sites expected to be hit with high temperatures and humidity levels, Marek’s safety team and its project superintendents and foremen can determine where additional safety measures, such as erecting tents for shade, providing fans and more, will be needed.
Vazquez says it is important to adjust budgets and coordinate resources to ensure the safety of workers in these high-risk-of-heat environments.
2) Hold biweekly meetings with supervisors.
Stephen Cain, corporate safety manager at Precision Walls in South Carolina, says regular communication among safety personnel and foremen is crucial. He arranges for biweekly meetings with superintendents companywide. The meetings involve more than 60 people—every other Tuesday from 7 to 8:30 a.m.—and have the goal of sharing best practices.
“We always discuss hot topics, no pun intended,” Cain says. “We discuss opportunities, and we get feedback on what’s working and what’s not working.”
3) Provide cooling liners for helmets.
This summer, Matt Taylor, director of safety at OCP Contractors in Ohio, is implementing a new practical idea as one way to safeguard workers during the hot summer months: He is distributing cooling liners for hard hats.
The cooling liners can be wetted down and Velcroed into the helmet to provide relief. When activated by water, the cooling liner wicks away moisture—and heat—to give workers up to four hours of comfort.
4) Distribute electrolyte packets.
Whatever happened to providing Gatorade or Powerade on the job site? That still exists, but sources say coolers containing Gatorade tend to go empty quickly and the crews forget to drink what they need most—water.
“Other trades will come in and finish the Gatorade before our guys get a drink,” Vazquez says. “So, we’ve shifted to distributing bottled water and electrolyte packets.”
Taylor says distributing bottles of water is more economical in the long run. It also is safer and makes it easier for OCP Contractors to monitor the water intake of its crews.
OSHA says workers should drink at least 8 ounces of water every 20 minutes while working in the heat. But it adds that workers should replenish their electrolytes, which are lost with sweat and can cause muscle cramps and other problems.
5) Work earlier in the day.
While providing shade and hydration are crucial to heat illness prevention, starting work earlier in the day in the summer can avoid peak heat hours and prevent heat-related injuries.
Cain says some Precision Walls job sites begin their work as early as 5 o’clock in the morning instead of a more typical 7 a.m. start time. Other AWCI member safety directors mention making similar start time adjustments, especially when a local heat index exceeds 80 and 90 degrees.
“Making these changes is just good administrative management,” Cain says.
6) Rotate work areas.
Job rotation allows site workers to share exposure to direct sunlight and the work areas with extreme heat conditions. For example, foremen can shift crews from one side of a building to another—starting, say, on the west side of a building in the morning and switching to the east side after lunch, or vice versa.
“It’s a matter of paying attention to your job site,” Taylor says. “They’re all different depending on where the crews are located and what’s going on, but sometimes moving people from one area to another helps to keep them cool.”
7) Rotate tasks.
Some projects have crews working on a variety of tasks in a variety of places on the job site—some hotter areas to work than others. One area might expose workers to direct sunlight. Another maybe be outside and in the open air, but it’s away from the sun. And still other areas are inside a structure and are shaded but, lacking ventilation, may be hotter than areas outside.
“You might have guys exposed to the direct heat working on the roof,” Vazquez says, “but you may also have crews in a completely sealed part of the building where the windows are closed and it’s 100 degrees. Even if you put fans in there, you’re only circulating hot air.”
The solution is to rotate the crews among the different areas.
“The guy cutting drywall on the floor is not the same as the guy up high doing top-out work—putting the last pieces of drywall where the wall hits the deck,” Vazquez says. “The temperatures there are going to be extremely hot, way more so than on the floor. So, maybe the one cutting the drywall takes a turn with the guy hanging it.”
8) Provide training.
Precision Walls holds daily toolbox talks on all job sites as part of its “Daily Huddle” program. During the heat, the talks always emphasize the importance of staying hydrated, Cain says.
“We remind workers out in the heat to stay hydrated, to take breaks and to seek shade,” Cain says.
9) Keep on top of the weather.
Cain says his company remains vigilant about weather conditions and implements protocols to protect workers from lightning strikes and wind hazards. Monitoring wind speeds and gusts is crucial, he says, especially when crews work on exterior equipment and scaffolding.
“Foremen need to be aware of the weather in their area, because at some point in the day it could affect their whole day,” Cain says. “They need to be mindful of what they have going on.”
“We identify the wind speeds and wind gusts—at 20 mile an hour we’re not working on exterior equipment or scaffolding on the exterior of a building,” Cain adds. “When thunder rolls in, we’ve got a 10-mile radius for a severe thunderstorm with lightning, which stays in play until 30 minutes after you hear the last thunderclap.”
Message the crews, but don’t overdo it. Too many notifications, safety directors say, can train workers to tune out. The best practice is to keep messages limited to immediate, same-day concerns.
10) Ban energy drinks.
Crews may lose energy before the day is over, so now many workers bring energy drinks to work. But that’s a problem.
“We have a policy that you cannot bring energy drinks to work,” Vazquez says. “They’re not allowed on the job site.”
He says Marek informs workers that the energy drinks are harmful. They contain caffeine, which drains fluids from the body. They contain sugar, which spikes blood sugar levels and can leads to irregular heartbeats and nervous and jittery feelings. Some energy drinks even contain alcohol, which is not tolerated.
“Some people will not eat because they’re drinking an energy drink,” Vazquez says. “They figure, ‘I don’t need to eat. I can go and go and go.’ They don’t realize they’re getting dehydrated and sooner or later will pass out.”
11) Have heat programs and plans.
“There’s a difference between a heat plan and a heat program,” Taylor says. “The heat program gives the foremen the tools they need. Then, on a week-to-week basis, they sit down and say, ‘These are the tools in the program I’ll use today, or tomorrow or this week.’ That becomes the heat plan.”
Taylor wants each foreman to plan his own job, answering questions such as “What will we do when it gets above 80? When it gets above 90?” The answers become that foreman’s plan of action for that job.
12) Talk with the GC.
Vazquez encourages superintendents and foreman to prime their GCs to expect crews taking more breaks and shutting down early due to the heat.
“You want to make sure there’s no friction between you and the customer when it gets hot and the project has to slow down,” Vazquez says. “There has to be an understanding about the right steps to take so everybody works in conjunction and gets the best out of those difficult moments.”
13) Talk with the other trades.
Here’s a story: The renovation work at a Houston hotel resulted in some Marek workers being overcome with fumes. Another trade did not take proper precautions.
“Another contractor started painting, and they didn’t check the paint they were using,” Vazquez says. “It was an oil-based product. People started passing out.”
That Marek crew is OK. But it was a close call—all because safety data sheets were not distributed to the crew and because the crew worked in an enclosed area.
“We want to make sure we’re prepared for something like this,” Vazquez says. “The crew could have had the proper PPE ready to go.”
The example highlights the role of regular communication with other trades on a job. The lesson is simple: Get in front of potential safety hazards by making sure the lines of communication are open.
14) Monitor the heat index.
Monitoring humidity levels is crucial for assessing the actual heat index that will affect a job site’s workers.
“Our heat is pushed by the humidity levels,” Taylor says. “An 80-degree day with 75% humidity can be hotter than a 90-degree dry heat day. So, if anything, you must watch the humidity levels—the heat index is what’s important.”
15) Bring in more eyes.
After identifying the high-priority jobs where heat could create the most problems, Vazquez might assign more than one safety person to that job—and sometimes he adds a third person, someone he calls “a roaming advisor.”
“The roaming advisor will have a fresh set of eyes and visit the job site once or twice a week,” Vazquez says. “It will give us an external view to see something the others might be missing. It elevates our awareness on that job.”
Your Most Valuable Asset
Managing job site safety during the summer requires a combination of proactive planning, effective communication and a commitment to prioritizing the welfare of workers.
By implementing practical measures, employers can create safe and productive work environments. They can navigate the challenges of the summer heat with confidence and ensure their most valuable assets—their workers—remain protected.
Mark L. Johnson writes regularly about the wall and ceiling industry. You can reach him at linkedin.com/in/markjohnsoncommunications.
