New Crane Rules: Here's What You Must Do
By Mandi Kime AGC Safety Director
New Washington State construction crane safety rules take effect Jan. 1 2010 and here’s what firms must do to prepare:
1. Prior to Jan. 1 2010 your company must secure qualified operators – they will need to have an NCCCO Certification for the type of crane they will be running and the documented requisite hours of experience. For an operator affidavit form click L&I Construction Crane Safety and look under “other resources.” Contact AGC for two other important pieces of information: a list of AGC member companies that provide the training and a Crane Operator Hours logbook created by AGC to help operators document their hours in a manner consistent with the rules. Contact Penny Schmitt in the AGC Safety Department at 206-284-0061 or 800-562-2868 or email pschmitt@agcwa.com. Logbooks are free for AGC members!
2. Have ALL cranes certified by a third party who will guide you through the certification process as well as through the Proof Load Testing using certified weights. For a listing of Approved Crane Certifiers click here.
3. Document document document! Make sure that even though the operator hours are the operator’s responsibility you MUST have documentation in your files as well. You also want to make sure you have documentation provided by the crane certifier on site to show details pertaining to the crane certification.
4. Call AGC’s Safety Department if you have questions 206-284-0061 or 800-562-2868. If we cant help we can certainly refer you to a member company that can!
The information described above and more were presented during the Safety Department’s first webinar held on August 10. Thanks to the participating companies as well as Sicklesteel Cranes and Overton for a great exchange of information.
Stay tuned for more webinars from AGC’s Safety Department. This fall we are planning at least three more webinars on timely topics such as New Fall Protection Rules Corps of Engineers Rules (EM 385) and Prequalifications (Port of Seattle Sound Transit and Refinery).
If you have any ideas for other programs or services were all ears!