User`s manual

News
®
DECEMBER 2009 www.chamberlainanz.com
Are you aware of your OH&S responsibilities
to your contractors?
Occupational Health & Safety
A
S AN INDUSTRY there are
no recognised training pro-
grammes or standards which
must be adhered to when looking at
who is “licensed” to undertake instal-
lation of garage doors and openers.
As a result, many have exceptionally
good work practices and are able to
get the job done safely, efciently
and cost effectively, however there
are those with limited training or
questionable work practices which
place themselves and others at risk.
As a dealer, if you employ con-
tractors to perform work on behalf of
yourself or your company, you must
be aware that you are responsible for
these contractors.
How should you manage this
responsibility? How can you reduce
the risk?
1. Select the right contractors to do
the job:
• Conrmtheyhaveadequatein-
surance coverage
(eg contractors insurance,
workers compensation, profes-
sional indemnity and public li-
ability); and
• Assesstheircompetence(quali-
cations and experience).
You may choose to introduce
a system where each contrac-
tor is required to hold an OHS
Certicate or Site Safety Card
(Blue/Green/White/Red Card
or equivalent in each State) to
demonstrate an understanding
of workplace safety.
2. Induction process:
• Coverproceduresincludingsafe
work practices, PPE require-
ments, hazards and relevant
controls, reporting of incidents;
• Job safety analysis (JSA) re-
quirements specic to the up-
coming job (to be completed
by contractor). This is to ensure
that they are considering safety
when planning and completing
the job; and
• Product knowledge specic to
the job if applicable.
3. Responsibilities
It is the responsibility of the con-
tract supervisor (eg Dealer) to en-
sure that:
• The primary contractor has
successfully completed the
contractor induction prior to
commencing work;
• Contactismaintainedwiththe
contractor, providing job su-
pervision and inspection of the
quality of the work; and
• Safe premisesare providedfor
contractors to carry out their
work.
4. Monitor contractor performance
• Check on the standard and
quality of their work through-
out the job and upon comple-
tion.
No insurance?
If as a business owner you use con-
tractors, you must ensure that they
hold contractors insurance (or equiv-
alent) in the event of damage or inju-
ry caused by them. If not, you could
become directly responsible for any
claims for injury or damage.
Dangerous installation?
If your contractors do not complete
the job safely, they place themselves
and others at risk. If this leads to an
injury or serious accident, you could
be held liable for not providing a safe
place of work or ensuring safe work
practices unless you can prove that
As a dealer, if you employ contractors to perform work on behalf of yourself or your company,
you must be aware that you are responsible for these contractors.
Chamberlain Service Information Bulletins
In October and November, Chamberlain pub-
lished three Service/Information Bulletins.
• Bulletin907isonFixingPointsforinstalling
Sectional Openers.
It lists the xing points, back clearance
and travel limits for each of the Residential
Sectional and Tilt door openers.
• Bulletin908isontheSpringTensionerfor
Belt and Chain Drive SDOs.
It explains how to adjust the tension using the
Spring Nut Assembly.
• Bulletin909isabouttheBatteryBackupfortheMT3850.Itgives
information about how the system works, how to test and diagnose
faults, when to disconnect it and how to do it.
Chamberlain SIB’s are also available on our website at www.chamberlainanz.com
So you have another job to do, an installation of an opener on a double garage
roller door. Pretty straight forward, you do this sort of thing all the time. You get
one of your contractors to complete the job. You haven’t used them often, but you
know that they get the job done quickly and are cheap.
You pass on the job details to the contractor who goes on site to do the job.
You aren’t aware, but he hasn’t got much in the way of safety gear and it isn’t much
of a priority for him in how he plans and does his work. He wears an old pair of
sandshoes, has some very well used tools and a dodgy ladder. He has lost his safety
glasses and doesn’t see any need to worry about getting another pair in a
hurry as he didn’t use them very often.
When he gets on site, there is nobody home, but they had arranged
access to the garage for him to start the job. He goes into the garage
and sees that it is cluttered and access to the area where he
needs to work is very awkward. Instead of contacting the
home owner, he goes ahead and works in among the
chaos as he just wants to get the job done quickly and
get out of there.
He sets up the ladder in a really tight cor-
ner and starts to climb up with the opener on one
shoulder. He looses footing and he slips off, knocking
himself out and seriously cutting his arm (severing an
artery). Nobody is aware of the incident and he does
not regain consciousness before he dies from massive
blood loss
“
”
Do you want to be held responsible for this accident?
Take control, reduce your risk and stay safe.
practises unless you can prove that
you have an effective contractor
management system in place. If a
contractor has installed a door or
opener in an unsafe way and some-
one is injured as a result, it is possible
that you can be held liable.