[TowerTalk] Certification to climb towers?

[Alan Beagley]

But does that mean that if I want to hire "Fred, the guy who does the 
tower work for all the hams around here" to put up my tower, he has to 
be certified? What if he isn't? What liability do I have?

-=-
Alan AB2OS


On 02/06/04 06:16 pm Jim Lux put fingers to keyboard and launched the 
following message into cyberspace:

>> I went to a club meeting last night where the speaker was in the
>> business of Tower and Antenna Installation. He said that the OSHA rules
>> have changed over that past few years and that everyone who climbs
>> towers needs to be certified to climb and and must use the proper body
>> harness climbing belts and locking belt clips.
>>
>> He also said that if there is an accident, that OSHA WILL come and
>> inspect the Tower accident. If the climber is not certified then the
>> insurance companies won't pay any claims.

> OSHA is "Occupational" safety and health administration, and only deals 
> with workplace things.  You're perfectly free to do hideously dangerous 
> things on your own, just not at work.  It's hard to say how OSHA could 
> come look at your mangled body on your mangled tower, unless there was 
> some "workplace" aspect to it.
> 
> Insurance is a different matter.. that's between you and the insurance 
> company.  If you were a business, I'm sure that your insurance company 
> would require that you have all your workers trained and appropriately 
> qualified and equipped, or, at the very least, had procedures in place 
> to do so (i.e. if an employee goes off and climbs the tower without the 
> safety gear, contrary to training and instruction and your procedures, 
> you might still be covered, at least for liability).