Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

This week has been an up hill struggle against the Sub-contractors.

It seems you must have eyes in the back of your head if you are to stand any chance of catching their numerous ‘cutting corners’ approach to construction. After completing the Ring beam last week the proper job of SCL works has commenced. The shaft has been excavated 1 meter at a time, in quadrants ensuring that the 400mm lining is in place before the next quadrant is excavated. However their method of ensuring the correct profile and thickness of the layers has been sub standard. After watching them use depth pins to ensure the correct thickness I asked the question if there would be an issue with water ingress.

THe issue is that although the sub-contractors have applied with the Material Specification (KT20)  by providing 50mm of cover, they have not thought about the water ingress from the clay. understandably there will be very little from the clay be the life span of the shaft is 120 years and the 400mm SCL is now reduced to 50mm in certain areas. AS a result we have instructed them to stop using the depth pins and use an automated monitoring system.

The second issue relates to quality control. In order to prove to CRL that the SCL lining is adequate, we must provide samples. THe testing forecast is stipulated by KT20. KT20 also stipulates that:

‘All on-site and off-site testing shall be carried out by laboratories accredited by UKAS or similar, acceptable national body or by persons accredited to a similar standard. ‘

However when I asked for their UKAS certification it transpired they were not accredited. This has resulted in us raising an NCR (Non Compliance Record) for each one of the tests they have taken. Additionally they forgot to carry out the tests that are required once a month. I was fortunate to realise this had not happened and they are conducting them now, only 2 days overdue (although still not accredited to undertake the tests).

On top of all of this one of the operatives has chopped off two of his fingers. Whilst unloading the kettle skip of concrete washout, the skip rotated back to the vertical position and chopped them off.Personally I have always said ‘dont put your fingers where you wouldn’t put you d**k’ so I have no sympathy for him. However RIDDOR has been notified and the incident investigated. It soon found that the kettle skip wasn’t on the Lift Plan and the lifting operations on site were stopped. All the lift plans had to be revisited and inspected before we could start again. It acted as a good test to see if our record keeping was correct. We had to provide his site induction date and signature, CSCS card, slinger/signaler qualification, daily brief signature, Method Statement signature, the list goes on. The final result is that all kettle skips on the CRL sites have been banned, deemed to dangerous.