Protecting installed work and stored materials
On Monday morning the superintendent walks level 2 and finds boot prints across the new hardwood, a pallet-jack gouge in the corridor and a scissor lift parked on finished tile. The insulation delivered on Friday sat uncovered through a wet weekend. Nobody did any of it on purpose, and nobody was responsible for protection.
Damage to finished work and stored materials is rarely one event; it is many small ones that nobody owns. Your specification may say who protects what — Canada's National Master Specification, for example, has a Division 01 section called Protecting Installed Construction — but protection only happens when someone plans it, installs it and checks it. Storage is also a safety matter, because stacked material has to stay put and floors have limits.
- List what needs protecting, and from what: finished floors, doors, glazing, stairs, equipment and stored materials, against water, sun, frost, dust, traffic, theft and other trades.
- Match protection to the hazard: board on finished floors along traffic routes, corner guards and door covers, film on glazing, raised and covered storage for materials that must stay dry, and locked storage for tools and valuable stock.
- Store to the manufacturer's instructions and the rules: off the ground, covered and stacked stable. British Columbia requires material to be placed, stacked or stored in a stable and secure manner, and US federal rules also require clear aisles and stored loads within each floor's maximum safe load.
- Check capacity before stocking a floor: in British Columbia, workers delivering materials to a temporary floor or decking must be aware of its safe carrying capacity and how to prevent overloading. Ask the engineer where heavy loads may go.
- Name who installs, maintains and removes each kind of protection, in the trade scopes or the coordination minutes.
- Inspect weekly and after bad weather, repair torn covers the same day, and photograph an area's condition before the next trade takes it over.
Common mistakes
- Laying stored material on a tarp on the ground, where water pools and wicks up.
- Installing protection and never maintaining it.
- Stocking a whole floor's drywall in one bay.
- Lifting protection for an owner's walk and not putting it back.
Checklist
The weekly protection walk
- Floor, door and glazing protection intact on traffic routes
- Stored materials raised, covered and stable
- Floor and deck loads within what the engineer allows
- Aisles and exits clear
- Tools and valuable stock locked away
- Areas changing hands walked and photographed
Check your understanding
Two trades each say the other damaged a finished wall. What record would have settled it?
