Ohio Administrative Code › Title 4123:1 - Division of Safety and Hygiene › Chapter 4123:1-3 - Construction › Section 4123:1-3-01 - Scope and definitions

Current through all regulations passed and filed through July 1, 2024
(A) Scope.
The purpose of this chapter of the Administrative Code is to
				provide safety for life, limb and health of employees engaged in construction
				activity. In cases of practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship, the Ohio
				bureau of workers' compensation may grant exceptions from the literal
				requirements of this chapter to permit the use of other devices or methods when
				it is clearly evident the equivalent protection is thereby secured.
Activities within the scope of this chapter, generally referred
				to herein as "construction", include the demolition, dismantling, excavation,
				construction, erection, alteration, repair, painting, decorating, glazing,
				cleaning, and pointing of buildings and other structures and the installation
				of machinery or equipment and all operations in connection therewith; the
				excavation, construction, alteration and repair of subways, sewers, tunnels,
				trenches, caissons, conduits, pipelines, roads and all operations pertaining
				thereto; the moving of buildings, signs, and other structures, and to the
				construction, alteration, repair, or removal of wharfs, piers, abutments, or
				any other construction, alteration, repair, or removal work carried on, in,
				about, or over water.
This chapter covers construction activities of employees whose
				employer engages in such work as its principal business. It also covers
				employees of other employers when the activities are performed in the course of
				new construction or substantial reconstruction of all or part of an existing
				structure, as well as substantial demolition or razing of an existing
				structure, but does not cover employees of such other employers when the
				activities are performed in the ordinary course of maintenance work.
This chapter shall not apply to the electric utility industry
				and contractors and subcontractors when engaged in the installation and
				maintenance of electric supply lines and/or the transmission and distribution
				of electric power in such lines between the outlet of the generating station
				and the outlet side of the meter through which such power is measured to a
				retail customer.
Installations, construction equipment or constructions built or
				contracted for prior to the effective date of any specific requirement (shown
				at the end of each rule) shall be deemed to comply with the provisions of this
				chapter if such installations or constructions comply either with the
				provisions of this chapter or with the provisions of any applicable chapter
				which was in effect prior to said date.
(B) Definitions.
(1) "Air contaminants" means hazardous
			 concentrations of fibrosis-producing or toxic dusts, toxic fumes, toxic mists,
			 toxic vapors, or toxic gases, or a combination of these, suspended in the
			 atmosphere.
(2) "Approved" means
			 
									sanctioned, endorsed, accredited, certified, or
			 accepted as satisfactory by a duly constituted and nationally recognized
			 authority or agency.
(3)
			 "Danger zone" means the point of operation where a known critical hazard
			 exists.
(4) "Department, division,
			 section or group" means a number of employees that are a separate part or
			 branch of a government, business, school or other organization, classified
			 together because of a common characteristic or function.
(5) "Equipment" means and includes all
			 machinery, tools, mechanical devices, derricks, hoists, conveyors, scaffolds,
			 platforms, runways, ladders and related safeguards and protective construction
			 used in connection with construction operations.
(6) "Equivalent" means alternative design,
			 features, or strength which will provide an equal or greater degree of
			 safety.
(7) "Exposed to contact"
			 means that the location of the material or object during the course of
			 operation is accessible to the employee in performance of his regular or
			 assigned duty.
(8) "Factor of
			 safety" means the ratio between the ultimate breaking stress and the working
			 stress of the material, structure or device. For example, the term "factor of
			 safety of four" means that the material, structure or device shall be
			 constructed of such strength that the maximum load will be one-fourth the
			 designed ultimate breaking load. Where other factors of safety appear they
			 shall apply in the same manner. The standards of the "American Society for
			 Testing and Materials" (ASTM) shall be used in determining the strength of
			 material except as otherwise provided herein.
(9) "Fire-resistant" means material or
			 construction which resists failure because of high temperatures and which
			 prevents or retards the passage of high temperatures, hot gases, or
			 flames.
(10) "Ground connection"
			 means the equipment used in establishing a path between an electric circuit or
			 equipment and earth. A ground connection consists of a ground conductor, a
			 ground electrode and the earth which surrounds the electrode.
(11) "Grounded" means connected to earth or
			 to some extended conducting body which serves instead of the earth whether the
			 connection is intentional or accidental.
(12) "Grounded effectively" means permanently
			 connected to earth through a ground connection or connections of sufficiently
			 low impedance and having sufficient current-carrying capacity to prevent the
			 building up of voltages which may result in undue hazard to connected equipment
			 or to employees.
(13) "Guard" means
			 the covering, fencing, railing or enclosure which shields an object from
			 accidental contact.
(14) "Guarded"
			 means that the object is covered, fenced, railed or otherwise shielded from
			 accidental contact.
(15) "Hazardous
			 concentrations" (as applied to air contaminants) means concentrations which are
			 known to the employer to be in excess of those which would not normally result
			 in injury to an employee's health if the employee had not been previously
			 exposed to such air contaminants.
(16) "Lanyard" means a flexible line rope,
			 wire rope, or strap which generally has a connector at each end for connecting
			 the body belt or body harness to a life line or anchorage.
(17) "Operator" means any person authorized
			 to operate the specific equipment.
(18) "Pinch (or shear) point" means any point
			 at which it is possible to be caught between the moving parts of a machine, or
			 between the moving and stationary parts of a machine, or between the materials
			 and the moving part or parts of a machine.
(19) "Point of operation" means the point or
			 points at which material is placed in or removed from the machine.
(20) "Protective equipment" means any
			 appliance used or required to be used to prevent injury to employees.
(21) "Provide" means to make
			 available.
(22) "Rope, wire
			 (haulage)" means a wire rope which is to be used only on inclined planes, for
			 dragging objects along the ground and only where the rope is not subjected to
			 repeated bending.
(23) "Rope, wire
			 (hoisting)" means wire rope to be used on cranes, derricks, dredges, draglines
			 and power shovels in lifting operations.
(24) "Securely fastened" means that the
			 object or thing referred to shall be substantially fixed in place.
(25) "Shall" shall be construed as
			 mandatory.
(26) "Standard
			 guardrail" means a substantial barrier, constructed in accordance with
			 paragraph (E) of rule
			 4123:1-3-04
			 of the Administrative Code.
(a) "Top rail"
			 means the top lateral member of a standard guardrail.
(b) "Intermediate rail" means the lateral
			 member or members of a standard guardrail, installed at intervals of no more
			 than twenty-one inches.
(27) "Structure" means that which is built or
			 constructed, an edifice or building of any kind, or any piece of work
			 artificially built up or composed of parts joined together in some definite
			 manner.
(28) "Substantial" means
			 construction of such strength, of such materials, and of such workmanship that
			 the object will withstand the wear, usage or shock for which it is
			 designed.
(29) "Toeboard" means a
			 vertical barrier at floor level erected along the exposed edges of a floor
			 opening, platform, runway, or ramp to prevent falls of material.
(30) "Walkway" means a cleared passageway for
			 ingress and egress for employees, between two given points.
(31) "Wall opening" means an opening
			 
									no less than eighteen inches in its horizontal
			 dimension in any wall, where the outside bottom edge of the wall opening is six
			 feet ( 1.8 m) or more above lower levels and the inside bottom edge of the wall
			 opening is less than thirty-nine inches ( 1.0 m) above the walking/working
			 surface, shall be protected from falling by the use of a guardrail system, a
			 safety net system, or a personal fall arrest system.