Safety Harnesses & Fall Restraint Lanyards

Scaffold Harness and Arrest Blocks

There are a wide range of products available to increase the safety of any staff working at heights, these take the form of harnesses either designed to stop you from falling or to protect you in the event of a fall and limit the chance of injury.

Restraint lanyards are designed to keep users from getting too close to an edge. By tethering people to a rope shorter than the distance to an edge, people are prevented from stepping off the working platform. In this way, a work positioning lanyard enables the safe movement of people at heights whilst still enabling people to work two handed. These products can be made from either a strong rope or a webbing. Both will typically have an upper weight limit of 150kg, which is equal to just over 23 stone.

In the event of staff needing to move between two positions whilst at height, you may need a twin lanyard, as this offers two anchor points and continuous fall protection. These lanyards come with either a carabiner or a scaffold hook. A carabiner is the style of hook used by mountain climbers and is comprised from a strong loop of metal the is locked together with a screw fixing. A scaffold hook is a large hook that will fit around the steel tubes of standard scaffolding. All of our fall restraint lanyards should also be used with a suitable harness.

As a vital part of height safety, you will require a harness. Often made from polyester webbing, a harness is designed to fix around a user's body in a way that supports them in the event of a fall. When attached to a suitable rope or lanyard, in the event of a fall, the harness will hold the user upright and well supported until they can either regain their footing or be lowered to safety.

Although a typical harness is fully adjustable, in order to ensure a good fit they also come in a choice of sizes. Typically listed in terms of chest, thigh and waist measurements, it is important that users are fitted with a harness that corresponds to their size. Wearing a unit that is too small will be uncomfortable and could cause injury whilst one that is too big could result in someone falling out of it.

Safety harnesses form part of a complete fall protection system. In itself, a harness will not prevent a fall unless it is tethered to a suitable lanyard which in turn must be attached to a suitable anchor point. In order to ensure you have all the elements required, you could invest in a safety harness kit, as this contains all the elements required to prevent fall from height.

Another element to consider as part of your working at heights process is fall arrest block. This is a pulley system that is attached to a user and will click into action in the event of a fall. It works very much like a seat belt, in that when pulled it will lock out and stop the fall at a safe distance. The internal mechanism will allow users to move between different heights and will only activate in the event of a sharp tug caused by a fall.

When your business involves working at heights, the company should always ensure that safety information is stored and displayed in an area that is accessible and visible.