Interesting response from Screwfix

[Stevem]

I'd like to see someone getting an FLT sideways in a container with room to push something... Vast majority of boxes goods from Far East arrive stacked directly onto container floor, or at best on a slider tray. Either way, 'hand-ball' is required to stack onto pallets for onward distribution. For items over guide dims/weight/spec. two or more bodies will need to be in the container (8ft wide) and in close proximity - so social distancing goes out the (non-existent!) Window... it's hard graft humping stuff out of a 45ft tin box. I speak with decades of experience
Add in the current container issues - can't get them out of the docks, can't get enough trucks to deliver them, millions stacked up waiting to be unloaded - this is why goods aren't getting through and why it costs so much to get a container from China now - and is probably the reason why Screwfix et al, cannot get stock.
all the above points are why I'm at home on furlough... Butchering reclaimed packing timber into more useful shapes

 

[Nick.]

I would presume Nick has all that in place, and there's more nuance to the operation than the picture shows.

Hi Jelly, yes I should have maybe explained better. We fully risk assessed it. The entire pallet comes off the back of container - we have extra wide forks specifically for this as it's way too big/heavy for most standard fork trucks.
Then to decant once it in the warehouse we use our electric deep pick machine that has telescopic forks, so we are not driving that at all to push, just the using extending forks to very slowly push with a fitted push plate attached (otherwise the forks would pierce the box)
We are very conscious of safety and this method works well.

it's hard graft humping stuff out of a 45ft tin box. I speak with decades of experience

Fully agree Stevem - when items are not palletised there is no other option but to handball out.. Too mad hot in Summer and sodding freezing in Winter

 

[Deadeye]

I've been looking at getting a low-end surface planer for a while now, and they're like gold dust.

Used Titan planers, usually £159.99 at Screwfix, are fetching £250-300 on Ebay.

So.. I dropped Screwfix an email, to ask when they were anticipating new stock arrival, and I received this reply :

"Unfortunately any products over 25KG’s are currently unavailable, as these products can’t be picked safely following social distancing guidelines."

I'm not complaining or moaning... it just surprised me.

But you don't want one of those anyway...
What you really (really really) want is a beautiful Inca planer...like the one I want to sell...

 

[Jeremy Nako]

Lol.. well I'm in the market for a planer, but size is the primary factor, followed by cost. Whzts the model.. ? Let me do some research.

 

[Deadeye]

Lol.. well I'm in the market for a planer, but size is the primary factor, followed by cost. Whzts the model.. ? Let me do some research.

It's a Inca Jointer 343.132 | Info, Guides & User Tips | Machine Atlas
220mm blades

 

[TheTiddles]

Or actually training staff to not be pathetic bloody wimps that can't even pick up a bag of cement. Nope, mediocrity (or worse) it is.

So, presuming you’re not... why do you need staff to do it for you? Or are you one actually one too?

This attitude is everything that’s wrong with workplace safety.

Aidan

 

[SamTheJarvis]

You mean training staff to break the law?

While individuals are perfectly allowed to lift what they like, employers are not allowed to require employees to lift more than 25Kg per person. I'm not sure they are even allowed to let them do so.

No of course not. I'm saying there's an entirely different attitude that is both safer and considerably more productive - ensuring staff are fit, rather than ensuring the bar is so low that nobody could fall below it. Whether that happens through company policy, contracts or a concerted effort to reinstate the value of physical fitness back into our culture in general, it doesn't matter. A limit as low as 25kg removes any incentive (at least from one's job) for personal responsibility over one's fitness and that to me is wasted potential.

So, presuming you’re not... why do you need staff to do it for you? Or are you one actually one too?

This attitude is everything that’s wrong with workplace safety.

Aidan

I'm talking in general terms about the societal/cultural effects of said regulation, nothing to do with me.

 

[Cirks]

On a positive note, when I bought my table saw from Screwfix, the lad in the store wheeled it out for me, gave me a hand lifting it in the car and then took trolley back. Both of us had masks. So, prob a lot just depends on the person serving, willingness (and ability) to help.

 

[Peterm1000]

So is this why there seem to be next to no mitre saws available to buy new?

 

[billw]

I very much think Screwfix's auditors might have an issue if they're told that Screwfix have a lot of stock but have no idea where it is

 

[TheTiddles]

No of course not. I'm saying there's an entirely different attitude that is both safer and considerably more productive - ensuring staff are fit, rather than ensuring the bar is so low that nobody could fall below it. Whether that happens through company policy, contracts or a concerted effort to reinstate the value of physical fitness back into our culture in general, it doesn't matter. A limit as low as 25kg removes any incentive (at least from one's job) for personal responsibility over one's fitness and that to me is wasted potential.



I'm talking in general terms about the societal/cultural effects of said regulation, nothing to do with me.

Yeah, it was better in the good old days when people were routinely exposed to asbestos, suffered workplace injuries all the time and the poorest in society died decades before the wealthy, who presumably just weren’t wimps. Shame that hasn’t happened to at least one more person
Aidan

 

[wallace]

When we did manwel handling the guy said you should only lift 25kg. We said the items we lift are sometimes 4Okg 14OO times a day, the guy was shocked and said they are only guidelines. We never got external trainers again, it was all done in house by 'trained' safety reps.

 

[SamTheJarvis]

Yeah, it was better in the good old days when people were routinely exposed to asbestos, suffered workplace injuries all the time and the poorest in society died decades before the wealthy, who presumably just weren’t wimps. Shame that hasn’t happened to at least one more person
Aidan

Is such vitriol really necessary? Plus I'm not claiming all regulation is detrimental... Alas you're clearly not willing to put in the necessary effort to have an interesting discussion, you damn yourself to mediocrity.

 

[Sandb1g]

Or actually training staff to not be pathetic bloody wimps that can't even pick up a bag of cement. Nope, mediocrity (or worse) it is.

Thats sounds like our local store

 

[bourbon]

A limit as low as 25kg removes any incentive (at least from one's job) for personal responsibility over one's fitness and that to me is wasted potential.

Do you really think that anyone who is on minimum wage is going to be that bothered TBH?

 

[Jelly]

A limit as low as 25kg removes any incentive (at least from one's job) for personal responsibility over one's fitness and that to me is wasted potential.

You misunderstand the origin and point of the 25kg "limit" (which if you look at the HSE's own guidance document from which it derives is not actually a regulation, or a limit)...

The figure of 25kg was arrived at by analysis of decades of data on MSK injuries at work, to work out what represents a "low" risk to employees.

Your opinion of what people ought to be able to lift is wholly irrelevant in the face of data which shows that lifting weights >25kg is associated with an increased risk of injury in fit healthy individuals, which means the HSE expects additional controls to be applied.



Beyond that point you're clearly unfamiliar with the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

An employer's liability for staff injury is absolute, and it would be monumentally stupid to attempt to palm that off on the staff themselves citing "personal liability"...

It's structured like that specifically to stop unscrupulous individuals from having written procedures which are safe, whilst verbally instructing or coercing staff to do something unsafe.

If you think that protecting people from unscrupulous and exploitative employers somehow makes us weaker as a society, that's a perspective I find genuinely difficult to comprehend.



I do think it's a cop out that many employers just make a policy which specifies a 25kg cut off, rather than providing the resources needed for management at a local level to do proper task-based risk assessments on MH activities...

But I say that because suspect a lot of people still get hurt because they lift inappropriate things in inappropriate ways, having had no proper training, and been lulled into thinking that because they're lifting less than 25kg it's magically "safe".

 

[topchippyles]

Might stick my titan planer on there as only been used twice and they are making £250-300 easily.

 

[TheTiddles]

You misunderstand the origin and point of the 25kg "limit" (which if you look at the HSE's own guidance document from which it derives is not actually a regulation, or a limit)...

The figure of 25kg was arrived at by analysis of decades of data on MSK injuries at work, to work out what represents a "low" risk to employees.

Your opinion of what people ought to be able to lift is wholly irrelevant in the face of data which shows that lifting weights >25kg is associated with an increased risk of injury in fit healthy individuals, which means the HSE expects additional controls to be applied.



Beyond that point you're clearly unfamiliar with the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

An employer's liability for staff injury is absolute, and it would be monumentally stupid to attempt to palm that off on the staff themselves citing "personal liability"...

It's structured like that specifically to stop unscrupulous individuals from having written procedures which are safe, whilst verbally instructing or coercing staff to do something unsafe.

If you think that protecting people from unscrupulous and exploitative employers somehow makes us weaker as a society, that's a perspective I find genuinely difficult to comprehend.



I do think it's a cop out that many employers just make a policy which specifies a 25kg cut off, rather than providing the resources needed for management at a local level to do proper task-based risk assessments on MH activities...

But I say that because suspect a lot of people still get hurt because they lift inappropriate things in inappropriate ways, having had no proper training, and been lulled into thinking that because they're lifting less than 25kg it's magically "safe".

Jelly mate, you can’t educate the uneducatable, laudable of you to try though! Rather like that irregular large mass with no accessible lifting points, some things just need to be left on the floor
Aidan

 

[doctor Bob]

I'm an employer, I like to follow HSE guidance. However I have real gripes about their charges and "finding stuff" so they can charge.
Last time they found a crack in the concrete floor, "trip hazard", I could not wedge a penny coin in it, so less than 2mm wide, cost £129/hr site visit and paperwork, total cost £260 plus vat. I rang and complained, they sent me another bill for £60 for the phone call!!!!!!
I find it quite funny that my 2 young employee's can go to the gym before work and bench press 150kg, lift dumbells at 30kgs. but can't be allowed to pick up a veneer press weight at work of 25kg.

The irony really being, when the gyms shutdown,they took the works weights home to work out. So they need a risk assessment to define the procedure to remove the weights from work to their car.
Once home they work out with them.

 

[Amateur]

I've checked all over the place and every single search comes up as no stock.

I wondered when the penny would drop.
It's been like this for months
Record, Charnwood, Axminster....etc. No stock of plane r thicknessers. Scott and Sergeant too.
Apparently container shipment prices have gone through the roof so expect large price increases in all shipped in machinery.

I bought a couple of infrared heaters during the summer.
£60 each
Now I know it's winter and prices go up...but £199 for the same thing now is robbery.