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Comment by goldcd | Hacker News Reader

I'm somewhat bemused, but also quite proud that Fred Dibnah has appeared here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Dibnah

I'm British but was completely unaware of the early stuff he appeared in, but the late 90s, early 2000s stuff crept into the public consciousness.

Our equivalent of OSHA is "Health and Safety" and Fred held a dim view. Fortunately his legacy is continued by "British scaffolders" - a famous sub-group within construction, who you can still see to this day getting utterly shit-faced in a pub on cider over lunch, before returning to site.

Not sure if this division of construction labour exists elsewhere. If you pay a builder to so anything in the UK, they'll subcontract any erection of scaffolding to separate company, with a noticeably more cavalier attitude towards potential death and injury. Then your primary contractor will do the job, and the scaffolders will return to remove the infrastructure.

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> Fortunately his legacy is continued by "British scaffolders" - a famous sub-group within construction, who you can still see to this day getting utterly shit-faced in a pub on cider over lunch, before returning to site.

'Fortunately'?

I'm not up for prissiness and stupid rules but hefty metalwork being put in high places - there's nothing good about mixing alcohol with that.

Edit: I'll go further - I'm disturbed that you can endorse macho bullshit culture that can get themselves or worse, any bystanders, mashed up or killed.

there are some jobs that are dangerous and there's just no way to change that

what about parent's post was "macho" -- you think drinking is macho?

parent didn't say their gender

> there are some jobs that are dangerous and there's just no way to change that

of course there is - just add alcohol! Voila, nao moar dangerous.

the assumption here is that alcohol makes them less safe

but do you have data on heights and alcohol?

Interesting, if slightly troll-y question. Let's go for it. Original comment referred to scaffolders getting "utterly shit-faced". Are you proposing that high levels of alcohol do not impair physical ability and judgement?

>utterly shit-faced in a pub on cider over lunch

emph on "over lunch", I interpreted it as hyperbole from someone from a less teetotaling culture

i'd guess 1-2 (2 for a heavier person) would not impair abilities at heights and could actually make someone less nervous

I assumed it was the same everywhere because it doesn't make sense for a company to keep all kind of scaffolding equipment when any given site will only need a small subset of it.

Ah least in France and Belgium, scaffolding is also generally erected by a specialised company (except very large public construction companies which do everything themselves, but then it's still separate services inside the company).

Scaffolding also requires certain licenses and insurance that are expensive to get in the UK, not worth it unless you are doing it full time. It is also an extraordinarily physically demanding job, which is not easy to do for someone who does not do it full time. If you look past the tatoos you will see scafolders often posess a very athletic physique, even sporting the neck and shoulder muscles that you normally only see on bodybuilders. Most general builders are happy to outsource such demanding work. It attracts a certain subset of the population, it is not particularly well paid, requires a qualification, is physically hard as stated, all weather. Therefore they don't descriminate against things that are taboo in many jobs, poor English, anger issues, heavy drinking, prison tattoos on hands and face, dyslexia, low IQ, missing employment history etc. You don't have to do a whiteboard interview, but you do have to be able to lift extraordinary weights. A standard scaffold pole is a 21ft long, heavy walled steel tube weighing around 30kg. Just you try and pick that up from one end like they do! You might manage to carry a 13ft (18kg) scaffold plank on your shoulder, but they carry them 5 or more at a time, and then lean them up against the scaffold!

To be clear, Im not saying all scaffolders are dim ex cons. They are all extremely tough though...

Btw Fred Dibnah of the video was in a very different industry of steeplejacking. This required brains and was rather better paid.

My assumption in NYC has always been that there is no such thing as a scaffolding warehouse, and scaffolding remains at one site until it is needed at another.

Just for the record, this is essentially connected to the changes in safety rules, it changed roughly at the end of the '90's here in Italy when requirements (certification of workers, need for projects for even the simplest scaffolding schemes, etc.) were introduced/made compulsory in more (now in practice "all") cases at the exact same time when - for a number of reasons (financial, fiscal, and more) - construction companies were essentially forced to sub-contract the scaffolding works because it became a cost (as opposed to being a resource).

Until then, having a good sized but not too large scaffolding inventory was something any construction company would have had, as well as the internal resources to mount and dismantle them.

Scaffolding is generally paid with a price (per square meter or in some cases per pipe/joint) for the installation, (usually) up to 1 month rent, and dismantling, then there is another price per month of the scaffolding being on site, a "pure rent" of the structure.

This latter tends (tended) to be remunerative (essentially beacuse there is no work involved in it, so it becomes essentially "interest on the cost of the scaffolding") and sort of monthly fixed recurring income.

If I recall correctly, the break even point was around 18-20 months, in some cases 24 months or two years, after which the scaffolding was paid for and the "rent" became just income.

More or less the same reasoning is (was) for site cranes (but also for other site equipment), that as well were once bought by the construction companies while nowadays they are almost invariably rented from some specialized companies.

Fred was a British TV star in the 80s young person. Back before HD TV and DVD quality.

I grew up around people like Fred (and they may have known him from his steam engine work) - good at hardware. Luckily software came along for me to not lose eyes and limbs to my job as would have been the case otherwise.

We are the poorer for having fewer Freds.

Fred Kummerow was another grave loss.

> you can still see to this day getting utterly shit-faced in a pub on cider over lunch

I worked in the construction industry in London in the late eighties and I witnessed builders drinking 6 pints in the half hour lunch and then going back to working at height with heavy machinery. I couldn't say anything.

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