A building at any stage of its life cycle will pose a number of risks, from the initial design and installation stages through to completion and then disposal of the building, all materials, products and practices involved will have been thoroughly assessed for positional risks.

The wellbeing of every operative or visitor on a construction site is of paramount importance and with strict health and safety practices in place everyone involved in the contractual chain has a clearly defined responsibility.

In the event of injury or fatality, each link in the chain will be examined to ensure that every effort was made to follow best practice. For this reason, the Advisory Committee of roof work along with the Health & Safety Executive issued ACR[CP]:2003 ‘Recommended practice for work on profiled sheeted roofs’.

Every specifier, supplier, contractor and client must consider the safety of personnel who will be involved in the construction and maintenance of the building.

Important as health and safety is, there are a number of other factors that must also be taken into account; the most commercially driven of these is keeping to the projects critical path, thus ensuring that the project is completed on time, within budget.

On the face of it, the two seem incompatible.

CA Group looked at ways in which the two opposite agendas of the buildings owner and the HSE could be brought together, and found the best way to deal with the dilemma was to consult directly with the HSE.

The collaboration focussed on the construction industry’s need for installation speed and price competitiveness, but didn’t lose sight of the HSE absolute insistence on designing out risk.

Each individual component was scrutinised and discussed, with recommendations from the HSE incorporated into the Non-Fragility testing of the liner and the module of the spacer bar and insulation.
Also as a result of this collaboration, CA Group became pioneers in the use of safety netting within the cladding industry.

Rather than adding cost to the finished project, the health and safety benefits of CA Building Products cladding systems helped to both speed up overall project completion and keep budgets under control.

One benefit of using lightweight liner panels is their ease of handling, which means that they can be quickly and safely moved around on the roof, giving excellent installation speed. This can be increased even more by specifying the CA Building Products sequential sheeting packing system in conjunction with CA Building Products cladding systems, which delivers liner panels and external profiled sheets packed in the order in which they will be installed onto the roof, reducing the need for operatives to move from pack to pack to locate the required sheets.

Once the liner panels have been installed, the building is effectively protected from the weather, allowing internal trades to safely begin working while the rest of the roof construction is completed above them. This situation is not possible with bonded or injected panel systems, as the roof is not fully weather-proof until the final panel is laid.

Many building designers are of the belief that the roof system they are specifying is Non-Fragile especially where 0.7 liners are to be used. Unless the system has been tested there can be no certainty as to how it will perform. Many 0.7 liners are classed as walkable but would be liable to fail if someone was to trip and fall onto it. It is the system supplier’s responsibility to provide system performance data and installation guides detailing how the system is to be installed and with what components. Building designers and specifiers should demand this information in order to substantiate any marketing claims made about a systems non fragility status.

For technical information on all of CA’s systems please click here, alternatively please contact our technical team.