Tips to help you stay warm on construction sites

The weather is changing and the mornings are becoming colder, which means the bite of the winter air is just around the corner. Construction doesn’t stop in the winter, so workers just need to be smarter about how they work and how they dress in the harsh fall and winter temperatures. Fall is a tricky time of year where temperatures are cool in the morning and warm up quickly, so here are a few tips to stay warm in the morning and as the temperatures continue to fall while working on your construction site.

• Wear proper attire. What you wear will have a huge impact on how well you stay warm on construction sites. Wearing things such as thermal insulated coveralls, helmet liners, and proper gloves will make a huge difference. Thermal insulated coveralls will help keep your core body heat in, helping you to stay warm, but still giving you a good range of motion. In addition, helmet liners and liners in your gloves will help you be able to do work on the construction site will still keeping your body heat in. Other important attire to wear to stay warm is wrap-around eye protection to keep blood flow around your eyes moving, a scarf to put under your jacket to protect your neck, double layer thermal socks and insulated boots to keep your feet warm.
• Use skin creams and moisturizer. It sounds silly, but moisturizers and skin creams can work as a barrier on your exposed skin to keep it healthy. It will help ward off hypothermia and frostbite, so find a good skin cream that you can use on your exposed skin while you’re on the construction site.
• Move, move, move. Movement generates heat, so the longer that you’re moving on the construction site, the warmer you’ll stay. This is why layering is also key because as you sweat you’ll become cold so keeping a few layers on will help to keep you dry and warm. It never hurts to have a change of clothes with you just in case.
• Enclose your construction site. This may not be possible for all sites, but if it is, enclosing your site will help you stay warm in huge ways. This could be as simple as wrapping open areas with plastic, such as open windows and doorways. Again, this may not be possible on your construction site, but if it is, it’ll help immensely.

Winter is a tricky time for construction workers and their attempt at trying to stay warm. But it is crucial to your health, so talk with your site supervisor about the safety precautions needed to help keep you safe and warm while working through winter.