Why DIYers Need Safety Gear as Much as Professionals

These days if you see someone working on a house you can quickly tell whether he or she is the home owner or a professional builder or construction worker. All you need to do is to glance at them.
If they are wearing a hard hat and safety glasses, the chances are they are a professional, if they are not it is likely that they are the home owner. The thing is that DIYers tend not to wear safety gear, but professionals do.

Why professional builders use safety equipment
By law professional tradespeople have to use safety equipment. Health and safety laws mean that employers have to care for their employees and provide them with a safe working environment.
Part of doing that is making sure that workers are made aware of risks, shown how to avoid them and are supplied with, and made to use, safety equipment. Failure to do this can result in prosecution and fines.

If someone is seriously injured or killed because they have not been provided with the right safety gear and been trained how to use it the business owner can be prosecuted and actually go to jail. As a result, health and safety is taken very seriously in professional circles and the wearing of good quality safety gear is now the norm.

The level of DIY accidents in the UK
Unfortunately when people carry out similar work at home they rarely take the same level of precautions and some pay with their lives. Every year around 70 Brits die while carrying out DIY tasks. A further 250,000 end up having to see a doctor or go to hospital because they have hurt themselves while doing construction work at home. Goodness knows how many more hurt themselves but not badly enough to need professional medical attention.

Image source: DIY Safety Shutterstock

The number of construction accidents in the UK
Compared to the number of accidents construction workers have DIY builders hurt themselves more. On average 42 construction workers die in the UK every year, but as we said earlier 70 members of the public die every year while working on their homes.

Again, if you look at the number of accidents and you see another huge difference. There are 76,000 accidents that result in injury each year across the construction industry. Yet 250,000 DIYers manage to injure themselves every year.

The reason for the difference is a combination of a lack of experience and health and safety training, but the fact that home builders do not use safety equipment as much plays a big role too. Not only do they make more mistakes the injuries they sustain tend to be more serious because they do not wear the right protection.
Buying and using DIY equipment for use at home

The thing is there is really no reason not to buy and use safety equipment. You can buy high quality safety gloves, glasses and hard hats from Safety Stock as well as hearing protection and other safety equipment. They sell products designed mainly for use in industrial settings, but quite happily supply single items to private households.
There really is no reason not to protect yourself in the same way the professionals do. Most safety items cost less than £5, so are affordable, comfortable and easy to use.

*Collaborative post*