Safety Clothing at Work

The way in which we clothe and arm ourselves for our daily routines takes on many guises. From an early age we are dressed up in various school uniforms and team strips. We learn that clothing becomes, rather than a personal expression of individuality, an identification of belonging to a group. It can serve many purposes, it can help an external viewer identify a group by its garb or can help to engender a feeling of togetherness amongst work colleagues.

Now, I occasionally moonlight as a roofer. We saunter over the tiles in good work protective uniform all dressed in matching Dewalt safety boots and Dickies Deluxe Lined Coveralls , we look like a well honed professional army. We specialize in what the construction industry refers to as "up and overs", these are simple affairs, generally on terraced or semi detached properties where we remove the old tiles ( we try to find a sunny day for periods when we leave a house roofless ) and replace the underlying course of felt.

On this protective felt layer we lay wooden batons, spaced out to receive the tiles. Once the roof is fully felt and battoned we can spend an hour/ day or two eating bacon sandwiches and playing games with our nail guns. Once this traditional period of sloth has passed we will be back up the ladders with the tiles ( generally Redland 49'ers - easy to cut, durable and manageable up a ladder up to about 15 tiles ). The tiles are then laid out overlapping each other over the battoning and nailed tight. Nail guns here perform their secondary function.

Where necessary we cut the tiles to shape or width using an angle grinder. Here, with the copious amounts of dust and chips flying it is a good idea ( and even the law ) to wear some sensible and durable safety glasses or even a Pulsafe Bionic face shield, these are a must at most times within the construction industry as all sorts of things tend to fly around when the going gets tough.

Once the roof is completed, sometimes we flash around the edges with a bit of lead sheeting. Then we are off, dismantling our work gear and back to our nail gun firing range competitions.

Alexis Svenn is interested in many things he finds online and in his pockets.