How Weather Affects A Demolition Project

It’s been said all to often: If you live in Toledo, Ohio just wait five minutes and the weather will change. It’s important to understand how weather affects a demolition project.  Different conditions play a factor in when the structure can come down and certainly plays a role in ensuring the safety of our employees, as well as yours.

Weather factors include:

• Strong Winds
• Temperature
• Lightning
• Heavy Rain
• Fog
• Tornados

Strong winds:
Often times on a demolition project, we employ the use of cranes with a wrecking ball. The use of such equipment must be done safely and accurately.  If we are experiencing high winds, it may be necessary to delay the project until the winds cease. The precision necessary will be impacted if the winds are too high. Beyond that, the ability to hear is impacted by high winds, and someone on the ground may not hear approaching vehicles.

Temperature:
It may not seem like it, but even the temperature can affect our ability to work on any project, including a demolition site.

Working in extreme cold temperature runs the risk of poor visibility through windscreens that are frozen, not to mention the high potential of creating slip hazards for the ground crew on ice.

In times of high temperatures, coupled with the excessive humidity, dehydration and sunstroke can pose a risk. Both can affect judgment and reaction times -a dangerous combination for the operator of heavy equipment.

High temperatures, or the intense glare of the sun can even have adverse affects on the machinery. They can overheat, and fire hazards exist in relationship to the machinery and any flammable materials we may have on the job site.

Both extremes can also cause machinery to not operate properly or break down all together. Not only would this cost time and money but can be extremely dangerous if the temperatures were to damage or cause a fail-safe feature to stop functioning all together.

Lightening:
It goes without saying that lightening will shut down a project in a second. The abundance of metal on our demolition equipment means that the dangers associated with lightening is very real. Our cranes, earth movers, anddump trucks all become great conductors of electricity that could potentially cause electrocution, fires or even an explosion.

Heavy Rain:
Beyond being miserable to work in, the presence of heavy or torrential rain will reduce visibility of our drivers of the heavy equipment, along with our crew on the ground. The earth turns to mud, which poses its own risk to the safety of our workers, as well as yours.

Fog:
Fog can be particularly dangerous for the workers on a construction site as it greatly reduces the visibility of everyone. Our drivers will not be able to see very far ahead, meaning that they may not be able to react in time if a person or object is in the roadway. Along with the visibility issues for the drivers, workers on the ground will also find it difficult to see approaching vehicles and get out of the way in time.

Tornados:
Rain, wind, andlightening can all be spawned from a tornado. In our area, we are prone to spring and summer tornadoes. We experience them in the fall. It goes without saying the dangers that can be incurred during a tornado.

Weather is unpredictable, and the power that adverse conditions bring with it are real and can be severe. It can disrupt any project and may cause unforeseen problems. Our demolition team takes weather patterns into consideration as much as possible to ensure your project is done on time, and safely.