Excavation Safety Measures Quiz

Excavation Safety Regulations

• Signs should be placed to warn people of the excavation.
• Walls of every excavation over 1 m (3 ft) deep should be supported by adequate shoring and timbering to prevent collapse.

Sloping and Shielding Requirements

• Workers shall not enter any excavation over 4 ft in depth unless the sides are sloped to a safe angle.
• No slope can be steeper than 1.5 ft horizontal to 4 ft vertical.

Supervision and Inspection

• An Experienced and Trained Worker should be designated to directly supervise each excavation project to ensure compliance with sloping and shielding requirements.
• Every part of an excavation over 2 m deep should be inspected for evidence of a situation that could result in an accident, including compliance with sloping requirements.

Barricading and Support Systems

• Top of the walls of an excavation more than 2.0 m deep should be barricaded to a height of at least 1 m to prevent the fall of workers, meeting safety requirements.
• Sheet piling is a form of driven piling using thin interlocking sheets of steel to obtain a continuous barrier in the ground.
• Shielding means to protect workers by using trench boxes or other types of supports to prevent soil cave-ins.
• Benching involves protecting workers from cave-ins by excavating the sides of an excavation to form horizontal levels or steps.
• Shoring is a support system designed to keep the sides of an excavation from caving in, and should be installed from top down and removed from bottom up.