OSHA ?

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Author Message Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT Senior Member Username: rliebing Post Number: 1409 Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2013 - 09:34 am:    Recently we have encountered situations where the authorities have demanded that OSHA requirements be included as part of our project work. Often the standards/provisions cited are dated back into the 60s and certainly are outmoded and archic. We have always been told and of the mind that on private projects OSHA compliance was the respnosibility of the Owner and not something adressed or made part of our documents. Anyone, please-- can you clarify what exactly the situation is, and what we need do to full fill any obligations imposeed on us by OSHA reguations. Honestly, this is not an issue that has arisen in the offices I've servd in over theyears. Many thanks for your insight and help. J. Peter Jordan Senior Member Username: jpjordan Post Number: 583 Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2013 - 11:50 am:    There are OSHA requirements that apply to the a completed facility (guardrails and toe guards), and these should be considered design standards that must be incorporated into the construction documents. There are OSHA requirements that apply to the construction jobsite (such as fall protection), and the Contractor must comply with these as a matter of law. In my mind, these should not be addressed by the design team or by the Owner since the Contractor is responsible for job safety as well as compliance with applicable rules and regulations. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1512 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2013 - 01:48 pm:    There are also many OSHA standards that the occupant of the building must comply with for employees, and that the owner of the building must comply with during maintenance. None of these should be the province of the designer, except insofar as they can be narrowly defined as Peter has suggested. (I'm thinking of a ladder cage, for example.) Perhaps this owner's request is more specific that your posting, Ralph, but OSHA is a huge regulatory agency, so where would you stop even if you intended to include "OSHA requirements"? Include respiration protection for cotton mill workers? Could be that they want a provision in the General Conditions requiring OSHA compliance. Arguably - as Peter points out - that shouldn't be necessary since these are laws (regulations) that must be complied with regardless of contractual language. Mark Gilligan SE, Senior Member Username: mark_gilligan Post Number: 581 Registered: 10-2007 Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2013 - 02:32 pm:    The reference to authorities suggests you are dealing with regulatory agencies not the owner. Further assume you are not talking about a federal project. Suggest that the authorities do not have the authority to impose such requirements. OSHA regulation are Federal. Building codes are a state issue. The states do not have the authority to enforce federal requirements. In the case of states such as California that have been delegated to adopt and enforce state OSHA requirements this is by another state agency that does not have jurisdiction over building codes. California law goes a step further and states that building regulations cannot address issues of temporary construction. OSHA compliance is the responsibility of the contractor not the building owner. In any case you should make the point to your client that it is not in their best interest to get involved with means and methods of construction, you do not have the necessary expertise to specify OSHA requirements, and that you do not have a contractual obligation to do so. On Federal projects suggest that the issues are the same except that there is no adopted building code. The feds have by executive order adopted a policy of having there buildings comply with certain standards. Thus it is a contractual issue and not one required by laws and regulations. Alto talk with your professional liability insurance carrier. J. Peter Jordan Senior Member Username: jpjordan Post Number: 584 Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2013 - 04:16 pm:    Again, certain OSHA requirements must be considered by the design professional (e.g., handrails and ladder cages). Most will be the sole responsibility of the Contractor. The Owner may be insisting that the Contract Documents explicitly require the Contractor to comply with OSHA even though they already require the Contractor to comply with existing laws, rules, and regulations. The danger here is that once the documents beging to specifically address a certain set of regulations, the Contractor may claim that he doesn't have to comply with other since no there was no explict requirement to do so. Reminds me of the project where the AHJ required that every sheet showing a light fixture in a warehouse have a note that required a licensed electrician connect the power to the light fixture (or was it for every fixture?). Steven Bruneel, AIA, CSI-CDT, LEED-AP, EDAC Senior Member Username: redseca2 Post Number: 399 Registered: 12-2006 Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2013 - 07:43 pm:    The one area where we regularly include reference to OSHA in our specifications is for window washing and building maintenance system specs (11 24 23). The majority of our work is in California, where Cal-OSHA is very agressive in defining specific requirements that can effect the design and the scope of work for window washing systems. The vast majority of our roof rigged window washing specs are performance based with design build delivery so it is important to name the required design criteria - doubly so if you find yourself working with an out of state firm. A simple example of how their rules and interpretations can impact the scope of work would be the number of davit arm pairs for a roof rigged work platform for a given building. For a building with many setbacks (Sears Tower in Chicago) you could come up with a budget solution that requires only two pairs of davit arms to cover the entire building (one pair at the top to transfer the other pair to lower roofs), but Cal-OSHA limits the horizontal and vertical distance that a worker is allowed to manually move the davit arms and you are better off budgeting for a pair for each roof level until you can prove otherwise. Since 1998, Cal-OSHA has been requiring building owners to maintain an "Operating Procedure Outline Sheet" (OPOS) on every building 36 feet or more in height. Our specifications require that the window washing vendor provide the completed OPOS form for review by the Owner for acceptability and for the vendor to submit the OPOS to Cal-OSHA for review and approval so that all cost surprises at least hopefully occur pre-construction. Brett Scarfino (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 11:36 am:    From the perspective of an exterior wall consultant... Two OSHA items that come to mind, which might need to be addressed by the contract documents: 1) Tie-backs for window washing equipment (not just the rooftop davit system, but the periodic receptacles built into the exterior wall systems). 2) skylights and fall protection.