Standards and stop-work

What governs the work

Fall protection. Climb work is governed by federal occupational safety requirements for work at height. One hundred per cent tie-off is the practical rule, and it is not a preference that gets relaxed when a job runs late.

Structural standards. The loading, maintenance and inspection of steel antenna towers are governed by industry consensus standards, which set design wind loading by location and structure class and set maintenance and inspection intervals by structure type. Guyed structures are inspected more often than self-support, for reasons that become obvious the first time you see a corroded anchor.

Obstruction marking and lighting. Federal aviation requirements govern which structures must be marked and lit, how, and what has to happen when a light fails. A lamp out carries a notification obligation with a clock on it, which is why lighting is tracked as its own line rather than folded into general maintenance.

Rigging. Anything beyond routine works to an engineered rigging plan: what is lifted, with what, at what sling angles, with what capacity in reserve. Sling angle changes the tension in a sling far more than most people expect, and a gin pole is rated only for the configuration it was analysed in.

These are described here to help you scope work. They are not a substitute for the current text of the governing documents, which change, nor for your own engineer.

The conditions that stop a climb

Lightning within range. A steel structure is the tallest conductor for miles. The crew comes down and stays down for a stated period after the last strike, not until the rain stops.

Wind above the threshold at working height. Wind at three hundred feet is not wind at grade, and a load on a line in gusting wind is a different load. The threshold is set by the work being done and the equipment in use.

Ice. On steel, on lines, and falling off both.

A structure in an unanticipated condition. A corroded member, a missing bolt pattern, an anchor that does not look like the drawing. Work stops and you hear about it before anybody works around it.

An unsafe site. Flooding, an energised condition that was not disclosed, a compound that cannot be safely entered, access that puts the crew somewhere they should not be.

Work that would breach a governing standard. Including work we have been asked to do in a way that would.

Who can overrule a stop-work call

Nobody. Not the client, not the general contractor, not the carrier, not this company’s own management, and not the crew leader who wants to finish and drive home.

The reason for stating that so plainly is that pressure to work through is real and it is almost never explicit. It arrives as a schedule that has no slack in it, a site that has been promised back by Friday, and a quiet question about whether the wind is really that bad. The answer to that question is a number from an instrument, and the crew is the one holding it.

If that costs a day, it costs a day. The rates page publishes exactly what a weather day costs and who pays for it, so the cost is known in advance and does not become an argument on the Friday.

What happens when work stops

You are told immediately, by telephone, and then in writing the same day: what was found or what the condition is, what it means for the scope, and what the options are.

Where the stop is weather, the options are usually wait, reschedule, or move the crew to another site on the list — which is one of the practical advantages of a routed list over a single job.

Where the stop is a condition on the structure, the options usually involve an engineer, and we will say so rather than improvising a fix. Improvising a fix on a structure is the one failure mode in this trade with no recovery.

What we send on request

A certificate of insurance naming your project. The current safety programme. Climber certification records. References you can telephone.

Sent to a named person who can check them, rather than printed on a web page where they would be a claim rather than evidence. This site publishes no safety statistic, no experience modification rate and no incident rate for that reason, and that is explained further in the disclaimer.

Telephone (407) 423-9071.