Rebar: cap it when you place it

Nobody pictures falling four feet. They picture falling off the third floor. The ones that happen are four feet, onto a bar nobody capped.

The points

• Every exposed rebar end anyone could fall onto gets capped or bent over. That is the rule, not a preference.
• A plastic mushroom cap stops a scrape. It does not stop a body falling from height - that needs an impalement-rated cap or a wood trough.
• Cap it as you place it, not at the end of the day. The hours in between are when someone goes down.
• Four feet is enough. People picture a fall from the third floor; the ones that happen are a stumble at grade onto a bar nobody capped.

Why it goes wrong

The gap that kills people is the one between placing the steel and protecting it. Everyone intends to cap it. Then a delivery arrives, or the pour gets moved up, and the field of uncapped bar sits there through a shift while people walk past it carrying things.

There is a real difference between the caps. The small plastic mushroom cap is designed to stop a scrape and a puncture from a trip at grade. It is not designed to stop a falling body, and it will not: the bar goes straight through it. Impalement protection is a rated cap or a wooden trough over the bar, and it is a different product with a different price.

Height is not the variable people think it is. A stumble at grade puts your chest at bar height on the way down. That is enough, and it is how most of these happen.

Questions for the crew

1. Where is there uncapped bar on this site right now?
2. Do the caps we have actually stop a fall, or only a scrape?
3. Who is walking over or past that steel today, and are they carrying something that blocks their view of their feet?

To close

If you place it, cap it before you walk away from it. Not at break, not at the end of the day.