Our blog for news and advice for increasing performance and productivity on the worksite.

Follow the proper procedures for confined space ventilation to protect your work crews from a potentially hazardous atmosphere.

In a typical year, more than 100 people die from working in a confined space, so it’s important to remind your crews how to remain safe. A toolbox talk devoted to confined spaces...

Trench accidents happen in protected trenches when contractors fail to understand and follow tabulated data. Here, experts reveal what you might be missing.

As a customer training specialist for the Trench Safety group of United Rentals, I’ve noticed that many contractors share some misunderstandings about protective systems for...

Some excavations are relatively straightforward and simply require choosing the right excavation protective system for the job. Others — deep or complex trenches — require a custom...

Every time your workers enter a permit-required confined space (PRCS), they’re trusting that your company and its managers and field supervisors have taken the necessary steps to...

Trench work can be complicated. It’s also potentially dangerous, as evidenced by troubling fatality rates. In April 2019, the industry saw more trench fatalities than in any...

What’s the first thing your workers do on the jobsite each day? A pre-job briefing, held before anyone picks up a hammer or begins laying pipe, will prepare them for the tasks...

Many OSHA standards, such as 1926 subpart P for trenching and excavation, require a competent person to be onsite and perform certain activities. For example, during trench...

OSHA requires employers to follow set procedures whenever their employees are working inside a confined space. But what exactly is a confined space, and does a trench qualify? A...