Importance of harness inspections and safety regulations
What are harness inspections?
If you are at risk for falling three metres (10 feet) or more at your workplace, you should wear the appropriate fall protection equipment. Over time and usage, your harnesses are going to deteriorate, and their effectiveness as fall protection equipment could diminish.
Having your harness inspected means that a competent person with adequate training and knowledge that is certified fall protection equipment inspections must properly, thoroughly and meticulously inspect the components of your harness to ensure it is in proper working order and up to safety standards.
What is Inspected?
Webbing:
Cuts, burns, tears, abrasion, frays, soiling, or discolouration to the webbing. Any signs of damage can cause the harness to fail if subjected to the forces of a fall. This is inspected visually, and by feel.
Stitching:
All sewn components of a harness, sewn terminations on lanyards, or sewn eyes on the end of a rope with a thimble, will be inspected for pulled, popped, or cut stitching.
Hardware:
Ensuring all hardware is in proper working order and free of any damage, cracks, corrosion and free of sharp edges or distortion. This includes D-rings, snap hooks, carabiners, adjusters, lanyard keepers and thimbles. All locking mechanisms must function properly and as designed.
Wire Rope:
Any wire rope or cable will be inspected thoroughly for broken wires, any signs of corrosion, kinks, or separation of strands of the wires.
Shock Absorbing Components:
Inspectors will look for signs of elongation, tears, or excessive soiling, including any visible sign of exposed impact indicators.
Labels:
Ensuring all important safety warnings, safety standards, ratings, manufactured dates are intact and visibly legible on labels.
Why you need to have your harness inspected
A safety harness inspection will uncover potential issues with your harness, allowing you to take appropriate measures to remove affected equipment from service and or replace your equipment proactively to avoid any potentially harmful event.
When and how often do you need to have your harness and fall protection equipment inspected?
In Canda, to comply with the occupational health and safety act, you must inspect your fall protection system before each use. Visually inspect your harness for any potential damage, stress on the metal components, stitching & webbing, or rope materials.
The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) also requires that all fall protection equipment, including harnesses, lanyards, ropes, rope grabs, srls and pfls be inspected at least once a year by a qualified inspector (in accordance with CAN / CSA Z259.10). Self retracting devices may also require more frequent inspections based on severity of usage. With the severe to continuous usage requiring quarterly to semi annual inspections. See CSA Z259.2.2-17 for more information
Qualified inspectors are specifically trained to identify hazards or deterioration that may not be easily identified by the untrained eye. Having your fall protection equipment inspected on an annual basis is a federal regulation, and can help save lives. Failure to comply can lead to penalties and fines.
How do I get my harness inspected?
As SupplyNow, we offer harness inspection services. With over 7 years of fall protection safety, we are qualified, certified and experienced in harness inspections.
When you book an inspection with us, you simply drop off your harnesses to us, and we take care of the rest. After inspection, all certified harnesses will be dated and tagged to indicate it has passed its annual inspection. You will also receive a certification record to document each harness inspection.
Contact Us to schedule your next harness inspection