Fall Protection: Safety Harness Expiration Date

Full-body safety harnesses are a highly effective and reliable piece of any fall protection plan but, while you may frequently inspect and maintain your safety harness, it will only be safe to use for a matter of years — five years according to the majority of manufacturers.

(Note: These recommendations do not apply to safety harnesses that have visual damage or have been exposed to chemicals, abnormal heat, or excessive ultraviolet light. A damaged harness can and will eventually fail.)

Although a well cared for or seldom used safety harness can last longer than five years, it is still recommended that you remove it from service at the five year mark. Not only may your safety harness be out of warranty, but you have no way of knowing that the internal structure of your safety harness is sound — even if it’s passed regular inspection and shows no outward signs of damage. When it comes to personal fall protection, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

To ensure that your safety harness makes it to its expiration date, store your harness at room temperature away from all chemicals, moisture, ultraviolet light, and anything that may cause damage when not in use; regularly inspect your harness and perform any maintenance that may be required, even if you think your harness is good enough to use.

After your full-body safety harness has reached the end of its life expectancy, remove it from service and dispose of it in such a manner that it can’t be mistakenly used in the future. Keep your equipment in good shape to keep your work site safe.

Source:  ezsafetysupply.com 

Why Fall Protection?

For Roofers – falls are the number one cause of serious physical injury and death.  There are many different opportunities for workers to fall off roofs – be it roof edges, ladders, open holes or sky lights.  Over 70% of deaths in the roofing industry have been caused by falls.  These were largely a result of not using any means of fall prevention for workers.  On December 15, 2012 new Federal OSHA Regulations for Residential Roofers go into effect.

Get one thing straight - once a fall begins – it is virtually impossible to stop the fall yourself.  It is impossible due to one of the unbending laws of physics – gravity. 

Human Reaction Time is about ½ second - in just that short span of time the distance and forces accumulated are considerable!   You can forget what you've seen on tv - this is for real.

In that .5 seconds, a 200 Lb roofer will fall roughly 4 feet and the force on impact (if you struck the ground) would be 3,200Lbs!  There is just no way a human can recover and self-arrest a fall when acting against these forces.  

Look at a representative chart of Fall Distance versus Impact Force:

Distance	Time in Seconds	Arresting Force on Impact
7.6”	.10  sec	512 lbs
17”	.30  sec	1,152 lbs
31”	.40  sec	2,048 lbs
4 feet	.50  sec	3,200 lbs
6 feet	.62 sec	4,800 lbs
8 feet	.71 sec	6,400 lbs
10 feet	.79 sec	8,000 lbs

As your fall progresses, the speed at which you fall increases as does the forces of impact that will be exerted upon you when you hit the ground.  You will only stop when you hit a lower surface – be it the ground or another roof/vehicle etc.