No matter the profession, everyone wants to feel safe at work. For construction workers, where a jobsite accident or injury could be career-ending or even life-ending, safety takes on a very serious meaning. The construction industry celebrates Safety Week every year the first week of May. Safety Week, May 3-7 this year, started in 2014 after global Construction Industry Safety Initiative construction firms teamed up with the Incident and Injury Free CEO Forum to make safety the top priority for all construction firms.
A main goal of the initiative is to talk about safety so workers feel empowered to report unsafe work practices and accidents. The group also strives to share best practices so firms can learn from each other and not reinvent the wheel. Thanking workers for working safely and adding to an injury-free company culture is an additional aspiration.
Safety is on our mind every day at Flex-Ability Concepts, from keeping our employees protected in an open and safe environment to manufacturing products that contribute to safe construction sites. We are regularly told that our products have improved contractor safety, and we are humbled—and quite proud—of that.
When we talk to installers, they say Flex-C Trac and Flex-C Arch are safer to work with than traditional installation methods when creating a curved soffit, ceiling or wall, as well as arches. For a traditional method, a worker uses tin snips to cut into a track and curves it by hand. The issue is a worker has the potential to slice his or her hands at every spot the track was cut. Maybe you don’t think a bleeding hand is a big deal, but we unfortunately know a few too many people who have had more than a superficial cut at work. Simply put, a jobsite injury is significant no matter the severity because of injury-related costs, lost work hours and OSHA violations.
Stellar Interiors Drywall and Acoustical in Conway, Ark., completed a recent installation of 16 pieces of 3 5/8-inch Flex-C Arch and 30 pieces of 2 1/2-inch Flex-C Arch to create a curved ceiling cloud at First State Bank in Russellville, Ark. HTW Architects + Engineers, Russellville, specified the use of a curved bottom track on a suspended wall to create the cloud in the renovated bank lobby. Malcolm Seiter, president of Stellar Interiors Drywall and Acoustical, says he turned to Flex-C Arch because it has improved past curved installations.
“We use Flex-C Arch whenever we have a curved radius or archway opening in a metal stud wall. We like it because we just have to draw the curve on the floor, form the track to it and bend the tabs, and it will hold the curve for us,” Seiter says. “It saves a lot on labor compared to the old way we had to do it before we had this product. For that method, we had to draw the curve on a piece of sheetrock, take some regular metal track and cut the flanges every 6 inches or so depending on the tightness of the curve. We would then form it and screw it to the sheetrock. Using Flex-C Arch is a lot safer because you don't have to worry about cutting yourself on all the places that you cut the flanges on the regular track.”
Hearing how we improve contractor safety inspired us to make this commitment to Safety Week 2021: We want to add to your injury-free hours. If you are using a traditional method of cutting and curving a track, give us a try. We can connect you with a local product representative or distributor so you can learn more about our products and see how they work. We also made this new video for Safety Week, talking about our product line and how we contribute to construction safety. We hope you make a strong commitment to safety in 2021, as well.
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