Blast Cleaning and Surface Preparation Insurance

Ask any site blasting contractor where the claims come from and the answer is car parks.

Abrasive leaving a nozzle at working pressure does not stop at a boundary. Blasting steelwork, a bridge, a tank or a facade in the open produces a plume of abrasive and coating debris that travels on the wind, and what it lands on is pitted, etched or coated. Vehicle paintwork and glazing are the classic claims because cars are everywhere and the damage is immediately visible on every panel. Then neighbouring buildings, conservatory roofs, garden furniture, machinery, and finished work on the same site that another trade has just completed.

So containment is the job rather than a precaution, and on open site work it is frequently a policy condition. Full sheeted enclosure where the work is near anything vulnerable, sheeting maintained rather than installed once, wind limits with a stated stop point, vehicles and plant moved or protected rather than warned about, a check of what is downwind before starting including what is beyond a boundary, and recovery of spent abrasive rather than leaving it. Photograph the enclosure and the surroundings before starting, because a claim about pitted paintwork is defended on what was in place.

The serious employers' liability claims in this trade are not accidents and they do not arrive while the business is trading as it is now.

Blasting with silica containing abrasive, or blasting substrates that generate silica, produces respirable crystalline silica, and silicosis has a long latency. A claim can arrive thirty or forty years after the exposure, from somebody whose records nobody kept, against a business that has changed hands. Noise and hand arm vibration follow the same pattern. Employers' liability responds to the policy in force when the exposure occurred, which gives old certificates and continuity of cover real value in this trade rather than theoretical value.

So two things matter now. Control the exposure: abrasives selected to minimise silica where possible, air fed respiratory protection with face fit testing rather than a mask, enclosure and extraction, wet methods where they suit, health surveillance for anybody blasting regularly, and vibration exposure tracked rather than assumed. And keep the records: employers' liability certificates going back as far as they exist, who worked where and when, and what controls were in place, because those documents are what answer a claim in 2055.

A blast cleaning contractor's exposure is partly determined by a decision somebody else made decades ago about what to paint a structure with.

Steelwork, bridges, tanks and buildings coated before the early nineties may carry lead based or chromate containing paint systems. Blasting removes them into the air and onto the ground, which turns a surface preparation job into a hazardous waste operation with a health exposure attached, and the debris is no longer something to sweep up. Some older coatings and substrates also contain asbestos, and blasting is the worst conceivable way to find out, since it liberates fibres across the working area in minutes.

So the survey is a stop rather than a formality. Coating composition established before blasting anything on a pre-1992 structure, asbestos checked on any structure or coating where it is plausible, controls and waste handling matched to what is actually being removed, and a refusal to start where nobody can say what the coating is. Most policies exclude asbestos liability entirely, so a disturbance is a cost rather than a claim, and spent abrasive mixed with lead bearing coating is hazardous waste whose disposal is documented or it is an offence.

Blasting inside a vessel combines two difficult environments and produces a third.

A tank or vessel interior is a confined space with limited access, and blasting inside it fills that space with dust so that visibility is near zero, communications are difficult and the operative is in air fed respiratory protection with a hose that is their air supply. Add the noise, the abrasive underfoot, and in some vessels residues from whatever was stored. Somebody who gets into difficulty in there cannot walk out and cannot easily be seen.

So the controls an insurer asks about are the confined space ones plus the blasting ones together: permit to work with atmospheric testing, a top man who maintains contact continuously rather than periodically, air supply monitored and protected from contamination, an agreed signal system given that speech is impossible, a rescue arrangement rather than a plan to call for help, and a limit on time inside. Check also that the policy permits confined space entry, because some wordings restrict it and on a business blasting tanks that removes a core activity.

Overspray damage is the claim and containment is the condition. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.