Coal delivery and elfin safety

[Jonno]

Lobster scribbled

Did he try as hard as these blokes

[john james]

No.

Separate matter entirely.

[Nightjar]

That will come as something of a surprise to the Health and Safety Executive, who publish them.

Not at all. It is all part of the question of manual handling of loads.

[Dave Liquorice]

Thats how it was done 50 years ago when I was a lad before central heating. ISTR we had twenty 1 cwt bags at a time though but the "bunker" wasn't one of those tiddly modern boxes. It was a brick outhouse about 4' wide and 10' deep, door at one narrow end. Thick planks were fitted across the door way to a height of about 3'. Coal would be 5 to 6' deep at the back down to the top of the planks after a delivery. Around 6 cu yards...

Our local coal merchant is an old chap, again carries sacks from back of flatbed to where ever, I have a feeling the sign on the truck says

25 kg though. Family business so his sons also work with him but I don't think any "yoof of today" would even consider it. They probably couldn't carry a bag in the first place, let alone a couple of lorry loads and it's a filthy job.

[john james]

More fool H&SE

Fraid so.

No.

[The Natural Philosopher]

So thats another thing you are clueless about is it?

[Tim Streater]

Yeah. My Dad built ours. Had separate sections for coke and anthracite.

[Tim Watts]

The things the Welsh do for entertainment!

[RobertL]

When I were a lad (I'm 60) we had central heating running on coke right up until the 1970s. We shovelled coke into the boiler in the cellar twice a d ay IIRC in the winter. The CH circulation was gravity convection fed in 3.

5" pipes. Our cooker also ran on coke.

Once they stopped making coal gas we bought anthracite 'nuggets' which last ed longer; we only needed to feed the boiler once a day IIRC.

The house was always cold.

Robert

[AnthonyL]

Mine came yesterday - I have 7 sacks at a time which we get through in about a month. Procedure same as you so no lifting but delivery guy has about 40m to walk to bunker and for the past few months to step over some bl**dy garden/railway sleepers that the next door neighbour has had deposited on the shared path.

The guy is very average size - 5'8" and not particularly big with it. He just trundles along and only complains about the traffic.

Just a bit less than that but coal ain't what it used to be so two of the bags are those manufactured lumps which burn slowly with a nice red glow.

[fred]

In article , AnthonyL writes

I bet he was over 6' when he started the job . . . .

Seriously, I don't think they could make coal deliveries pay if they didn't humph them on their backs, they'd spend far too long on site and I'm betting your guy does those drops in less than five mins and is gone.

[michael adams]

I'd imagine that would only apply to people with no actual experience of doing such work. Or with no training, which in the past was simply being shown how to do it, by an experienced person.

Otherwise in the past it would have been impossible to find anyone to do such work, as they'd all be injuring themselves and unable to earn a living.

As it's unlikely that random members of the public are going to want to lift sacks of coal, all that applying Health and Safety regulations does in such circumstances, is denigrate the experienced coalman in assuming that he doesn't have the skill or experience to do the job he's being doing for years, without injuring himself.

Patronising ? Moi ?

michael adams

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michael adams

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[Jonno]

Tim Watts scribbled

Look carefully and you'll see sheep's feet sticking out of some of the bags.

[Nightjar]

That does not mean he has not been at risk of injury all that time.

There is a hierarchy of ways to protect people from risk. At the top end is isolating them from it entirely, although fully automated coal delivery is probably a long way in the future. Training alone comes at the bottom, as an absolute last resort, when nothing else is possible. Providing them with the proper equipment to do the job with a minimum of risk comes somewhere around the middle.

[spuorgelgoog]

perhaps it could be destructively distilled into gaseous form and sent through pipes?

Owain

[tony sayer]

When I were a lad there were two odd lorries doing the rounds where we used to live, but I can't remember seeing one for years now!.

However the Coal men in those days seemed to hump sacks around with no problems we had the same bloke delivering for years .. seemed very fit!..

[michael adams]

And there will presumably be statistics to support that claim.

In terms of the injuries suffered by workers in the coal delivery trade over any given period. As against the total number of trained delivery workers.

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That would all depend on how much risk experienced coal delivery men were actually subjected to. Either in the past and at present. Which could best be assessed by the number of coalmen employed in any particular period past or present, as against the number of coalmen reporting themselves injured again during that same period.

Without any actual statistics any subjective assessment of risk remains just that. Purely subjective. And might be open to all kinds of bias, both from people trying to create careers for themselves, or so as to sell various types of equipment.

michael adams

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[Tim+]

I think there's also a big danger of adding new dangers when trying to eliminate obvious ones. Adding "equipment" sounds fine and dandy but I'm sure I can't be alone in slipping and falling backwards when trying to pull a loaded sack barrow up a step or two. That's just one example. Add a winch for lifting sacks and you've added a whole new potential series of "accidents waiting to happen".

Tim

[Brian Gaff]

Well even some time back I'd seen a special lift device and a truck used for coal delivery, but inthe olddays no. I don't know how they get on when the bunker is behind the house which is a centre of terrace, you would not want it to brough through the house and if no rear access, dunno. Brian

[spuorgelgoog]

Such houses would have been built with coal-cellars having a coal-hole in the pavement.

If they were really low-class houses with no coal-cellar then the occupants probably tolerated coal-dust in the hall.

Owain