From Durability & Design-Roofing Contractor Likely to Face Fines after Newly Applied Coating Washes into Creek

Roofing Contractor Likely to Face Fines after Newly Applied Coating Washes into Creek

This is a warning to everyone who puts down coatings, roof, deck, whatever...make sure it's dry so it don't wash into da creek!

A roofing contractor that applied a white acrylic coating to the roof of a commercial building in Palo Alto, Calif., is likely to face fines after a rainstorm washed paint into a nearby creek.
City officials said approximately 25 gallons of paint entered the stormwater-runoff system and washed into Matadero Creek when the storm hit early Sunday. The paint had been applied Friday and Saturday, but some apparently had not dried and cured sufficiently before rainfall arrived.

Read the rest at Durability & Design's website by clicking this link.

 

OSHA Proposes $90,000 in fines After Brooklyn Balcony Collapse

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

NEW YORK - The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed a total of $90,000 in fines against four New York contractors as the result of a Dec. 15, 2009, balcony collapse at a five-story residential building under construction at 701 Union St. in Brooklyn.

Cited are steel erection contractor N&C Iron Works Inc. of Brooklyn and three Staten Island contractors, project general contractor NNF Enterprises Inc. doing business as FDM Construction, masonry subcontractor IVM General Construction Inc. and carpentry subcontractor Barbaria Construction.

An employee of N&C Iron Works fell 20 feet when the second floor balcony he was standing on collapsed as he was attempting to jack up the third floor balcony. OSHA's inspection found that the second floor balcony was overloaded, improperly constructed and incapable of supporting its weight load. The scaffold on which employees were performing steel erection work was improperly constructed and employees lacked fall protection.

"These employers failed to ensure that all necessary safeguards were in place and in use, thus exposing workers at this jobsite to potentially deadly fall and crushing hazards," said Kay Gee, OSHA's area director for Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. "While it is fortunate that no one was killed in this incident, worksite safety and workers' lives cannot and must never be dependent on chance or luck."

As a result of its investigation, OSHA has fined NNF Enterprises $46,250 for failing to brace or support the balcony, unsecured scaffold decking, no regular worksite safety inspections, debris in an access stairway and missing railings. N&C Iron Works Inc. has been fined $29,250 for lack of fall protection, not training employees on fall and scaffold hazards, overloading and not ensuring the stability of the balcony, stairway debris and missing railings. IVM General Construction Inc. has been fined $13,000 for the overloaded balcony, the inadequately constructed and planked scaffold, lack of fall protection, stairway debris and missing railings. Barbaria Construction has been fined $1,500 for unsecured scaffold decking.
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Deck Collapses-July 4th partiers fall 3 stories in Ala.; 1 dead

DECK SAFETY PLEASE!


A wooden deck crumpled under a group of Fourth of July partiers in Alabama, killing one person and injuring six others.

Seven partygoers plummeted three stories when the deck at an apartment complex in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover collapsed Sunday night. Two uninhabited decks below were crushed by the falling debris.

Hoover Fire Department spokesman Rusty Lowe said one person was pronounced dead at the hospital, another is in critical and three are hospitalized with serious injuries. Two were treated for minor injuries and released.

Read more: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/07/05/1204882/july-4th-partiers-fall-3-stories.html#ixzz0tCGsX8QE

Connecticut Condo Owners Learn the Hard Way That Contractors Without Proper Insurance Can Screw Them Over

You've Been Warned...Read This and Learn...

...The roofing contractor working on the building in October lacked the proper insurance, so owners of all 100 units in the Twin Oaks complex -- not just the 20 in building 106 -- are on the hook for the repair bill. A special $400-plus monthly charge was imposed by the condo association in January to raise $200,000 for emergency roof work, utility safety tests and repairs.

This saddled owners with the added burden of the special assessment on top of mortgage payments and the $300 monthly common fees, without having relief from rental income in 106 Oakwood to defray costs.
Two of the owners in 106 are now in court, facing foreclosure.
The special assessment is an added burden for owners in all five Twin Oaks buildings.
""People were barely making it before," an elderly owner on a unit in neighboring 102 Oakwood Ave. said Friday. "Mother Nature did the damage, but the innocent have to pay the bill."

'It Was Bad'

Contractor KLS LLC of Wethersfield lacked proper insurance for roofing work being done at the time of the storms, though that wasn't determined until after the deluge. The company had coverage for snowplowing and landscaping but not for roofing work, according to the Newington insurance agency, Connecticut Insurance Exchange, listed on the KLS permit applications on file with the West Hartford building department.

Glenn Terk, the contractor's attorney, said Friday that he advised his client not to discuss the issue publicly because of the "potential for litigation." Terk noted that no civil actions have been filed against his client, who had done roofing work in the past for Twin Oaks.

But someone is to blame, Pastor said, and not the tenants, who were just living their lives.

"The contractor was chosen by somebody," he said. "Is this whole thing an issue of building management, of the roof not being properly maintained and so it needed repairs? Is it the condo association? Is it the roofer, for obvious reasons? Everybody is going to blame everybody, but how complicated is it?"

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT THE HARTFORD COURANT BY CLICKING HERE

Construction Accident Claims Painters Life

It can happen anytime, anywhere...construction sites are dangerous!

RIP Paul Thompson-48 years old.
FROM PAINT SQUARE'S DAILY EMAILED NEWS...

Friday, April 9, 2010

Painter Electrocuted at Work Site

A 48-year-old painter from the Pittsburgh area was electrocuted while painting a Habitat for Humanity complex last week.
Paul Thompson was working at the facility in New Kensington, Pa., about 2:50 p.m. Wednesday when he somehow came in contact with several high-voltage power lines and suffered cardiac arrest. Rescue workers reported that Mr. Thompson had been using a metal or fiberglass pole that touched the lines.
Reports varied on how the accident occurred. Some witnesses said that Mr. Thompson had been painting an exterior wall at the time, while others said that he had been working on the roof. Still others said that Mr. Thompson and his partner had been leaning out from the roof to spray-paint along the walls near the power lines.
The co-worker reportedly performed CPR on Mr. Thompson for several minutes until paramedics arrived. But neither he nor they were able to revive Mr. Thompson, and he was pronounced dead a short time later at Allegheny Valley Hospital, according to news reports.
Mr. Thompson was in his second day of employment with Modern Painting and Decorating, a family-owned residential painting company based in nearby Springdale, reports said. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Habitat for Humanity rents space in the building for the ReStore, a retail outlet that sells home-improvement and decorating items as a fundraiser for the charity.