With winter fast approaching it’s important to consider the construction site hire choices one needs to make. Winter presents unique challenges to construction sites, which will need to be addressed by hiring the appropriate facilities and equipment.
So what do you need?
Welfare facilities
Winter can make ensuring employee welfare that much more difficult. Cold, wet, and dirty working conditions can lead to an unhappy and unsafe working environment, which means the right welfare facilities become essential.
Toilets, for example, are of course a necessity for every construction site. In winter, however, it would be worth investing a little more in ensuring that the toilets have integrated hot-wash re-circulation. This will ensure that hands can be washed thoroughly, helping prevent the spreading of germs in a time when colds and flu will be rife.
Other welfare facilities you should consider include an appropriate break-room/canteen. This should be powered, have hot water and a sink, and ideally be heated. This will give employees somewhere to take breaks and eat meals where they can be out of the elements. You may also consider another unit to act as a site office.
Something else to consider is showers. Winter brings with it lots of moisture, which means construction sites can often become filthy places to work. Offering on-site showering facilities with hot running water is an excellent way of boosting employee morale. It can also help ensure that the effects of working out in the cold are kept at bay.
Generator hire
Hiring a generator is always a wise move when it comes to operating an efficient construction site. In the winter, however, it’s easy to argue that hiring a generator actually becomes a necessity.
The lower temperatures mean that heating is going to be an issue. Many cabins come with heating systems, but you’ll want to be sure they’re properly powered to keep that heat consistent. Providing a warm, dry place for employees to rest is essential, and a generator will allow you to achieve that.
Then there are the lighting issues presented by the shorter days. In the middle of winter usable natural light is going to be virtually gone by 4 p.m, which means investing in more floodlights to keep construction sites open for longer and reach important deadlines.
Weather can also play a part in obscuring vision, which again will call for more intensive lighting. If the weather turns particularly unpleasant, however, there’s also the very real concern of power being cut to the construction site if you happen to be connected – generators will help you keep the site functional.
Then you need to consider the more intense power requirements you’re going to be experiencing through winter – all the lights in the cabins will be on, heaters used, kettle on constantly for hot drinks. You need to account for that and be sure that you can handle those power needs. Remember that your generator use will scale with your requirements.
Contact a specialist
A crucial way to prepare your construction site for the winter months is to seek some outside help from a specialist in hiring facilities. They will be able to leverage their experience into suggesting the kind of things that you’re going to need. Not only that, they can help you understand the scale of your needs as well.
They’ll work within your budgetary and operational constraints to provide you with a picture of what you’re going to need. This means understanding the right facilities to cater for the number of employees, and the proper amount of generators to reliably handle your power requirements. Outside experience is the best investment you can make when it comes to properly preparing your construction site for winter.
