Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
(OP)
Hello All:
I am looking for some advice regarding a position I am debating on accepting. I will be working on the field for a general contractor building highrises. Even though they have the best safety record in the business, I am currently rethinking the whole thing.
I am a fairly young guy with little experience. I am concerned about my safety. Are there dangers in working in such an environment. Would you work on highrises?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
I am looking for some advice regarding a position I am debating on accepting. I will be working on the field for a general contractor building highrises. Even though they have the best safety record in the business, I am currently rethinking the whole thing.
I am a fairly young guy with little experience. I am concerned about my safety. Are there dangers in working in such an environment. Would you work on highrises?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!





RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
If you are atill concerned about your safety, ask to talk to the company's employee safety officer. Ask whether you will be trained in fall-protection techniques(the answer had better be yes).
"...students of traffic are beginning to realize the false economy of mechanically controlled traffic, and hand work by trained officers will again prevail." - Wm. Phelps Eno, ca. 1928
"I'm searching for the questions, so my answers will make sense." - Stephen Brust
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
For example, the US has a quite regulated and litigious construction environment that will tend to minimize the risks. Driving to work is probably more hazardous than being at work.
If you are working in the third world, the value of a life is not as great.
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
I have just one tip in case you chose to accept the position - PRESENCE OF MIND at all times.
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
Although safety is everyone's responsibility, the people on site will feel responsible for keeping you from getting yourself killed (unless they really hate you) and will do their best not to let you do anything dangerous. They have to fill out way too much paperwork if anything happens to you.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
you WILL be walking around pre-slab and "flat" roof areas where the perimeter of the building would be tied off with steel cables (like handrails), beams would be set, and decking would be welded and screwed down. (i'm assuming it's similar to USA practice)
to feel better about the safety, hang out with the steel inspector and steel erection foremen and ask them about how you can tell when the decking is secured and when it is too damaged to support concrete. if you learn how to do a steel inspection (bolts, welds, shear studs, puddle welds, lap screws, stair erection, and general steel layout), you will have a better feeling for when something may not be safe. you should learn how it's done anyway since you would probably have coordination roles and nothing stops a concrete pour as quick as steel problems.
i feel safer on high-rise construction than i do on 1, 2, or 3-story construction. reason being that the construction type (especially for stuctural masonry) for smaller buildings might mean that there are 3-stories of exterior ladder-type scaffolding to climb instead of a central core stairway.
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
I think we might have also learned about two-way reinforced concrete slab design and stability of steel structures and stuff like that, but mostly I remember not to be under the crane.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
In the States we can take what is called an OSHA 10 hour course for General Construction Safety. And there are others specifically for fall protection, confined spaces, etc. They are very helpful and informative. Most likely there are Canadian equivalents.
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
Maybe the difference is because there's not a whole lot of simultaneous activity on a bridge erection site, so they can keep a much closer eye on the goings-on without setting up physical barricades. When a lift is happening, that is pretty much THE show. I've never been to a building construction site during a lift.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Career Advice Please - Highrise Buildings
I am into construction projects inside an existing cement plant. The compound is very wide and lots of people wandering inside the plant, contractors, operators and other plant personnels and also visitors. It is our standard safety procedure to enclose the lifting area with red plastic tape marked bold letters "danger". No body can enter the area even the contractor personnel itself except when a rigging person need to do something inside the danger zone.