Join HSI Chief Safety Officer Jill James as she visits environmental health and safety professionals in their workplaces to explore important workplace safety topics. This video covers loading materials on buildings, within buildings, and how to properly label them regarding maximum weight ratings.

Video Transcript:

My name is Jill, Chief Safety Officer with HSI. I'm a former OSHA inspector here to help you identify and correct workplace safety hazards.

Today I want to talk about Floor Loading Protection safety training.

It likely wouldn't be a good day at work if the ceiling caved in on you, would it? Well many places of employment have a room within a room like what we see here, or sometimes a mezzanine with storage over the top. It's not uncommon for rooms like this to end up being used as storage with other materials in them. We really want to be careful with that. We want to make sure that we're not exceeding the weight capacity so the ceiling caves in on you.

Here's what's required: have a structural engineer calculate the load capacity of that ceiling or roof, then place a placard noting the capacity in a conspicuous place. Normally I've seen them place this right along the top edge to grab a person's attention before an item is placed on the area. Remember if you have an area like that in your workplace and your employees need to go up there to retrieve something, and the fall distance is greater than four feet you have to provide fall protection for employees. Now that could be a standard guardrail system or a personal fall arrest system.

I hope you gained a safety skill today. If you know someone who needs this go ahead and pass it on.

Safety is everyone's business.