Pre-ticked for falls, atmosphere and confined spaces, with three rows written. Painting is one of the few trades that creates the contaminated atmosphere it then stands in for the rest of the day.
The atmosphere limb is usually somebody else problem. Here it is yours
Work in an area that may have a contaminated or flammable atmosphere reads like a rule about tanks and sewers, so painters skip it. Solvent vapour building up in an unventilated room, spraying in a plant room, and two-pack coatings in any enclosed space all land squarely inside it, and the source is the tin in your hand.
Which makes the control different in kind. You cannot ventilate away a hazard that is being replenished continuously, so the ventilation has to be sized for the rate of application and running before, during and after, and the substitution question comes first: does the specification actually require a solvent-based product here.
Two-pack is a different respiratory problem
Isocyanates in two-pack coatings are respiratory sensitisers. Once somebody is sensitised, any future exposure at any level can trigger a reaction, so the injury is not dose-related in the way most exposures are and it does not get better with time away.
A cartridge mask is not the control for spraying two-pack. Air-fed respiratory protection is, along with face fit records for whoever wears it, because a mask that does not seal on that person face is decoration. It is one of the few places where the PPE genuinely is the primary control, because there is no engineering answer to spraying in an occupied space.
Preparation is where the old building fights back
Sanding is the step that turns an inert surface into airborne dust, and what was in the coating decides what you are breathing. Lead in pre-1970s paint, silica from render and masonry, and asbestos in textured coatings are all things you release rather than encounter.
So sampling comes before abrasion rather than after somebody notices the wall is odd, and wet methods or on-tool extraction replace dry sanding wherever the surface allows. Dry sanding a textured ceiling coating without knowing what is in it is one of the fastest ways to contaminate an occupied building.
Working above people who did not agree to it
Painting is frequently the last trade in, which means the building below is often occupied or handed over while you are still on a tower in the atrium. The people underneath are not on your induction and have not agreed to anything.
Exclusion below is the control, and it has to be physical rather than a cone and an intention, because members of the public walk round cones. Where the space cannot be closed, the work moves out of hours, which is a programme decision that has to be made before the price rather than at eight in the morning on the day.
Drips are the other half. A water-based coating on a marble floor is a cleaning bill; a solvent-based one on a resin floor is a replacement.
Ladders deserve one line of their own here, because painting is the trade that keeps them alive on sites that have otherwise moved past them. A ladder is legitimate for short duration light work where a platform genuinely cannot be positioned, and cutting in a full room from one is neither short nor light. The honest test is whether you would still be on it in twenty minutes.
Common questions
Does painting count as high risk construction work?
Often through height rather than through the coating: external work over 2 metres, or internal work from a tower. Spraying in an enclosed area brings in the contaminated or flammable atmosphere limb, and work inside a tank or plant room can bring in the confined space one. Brush work at ground level in a ventilated room may sit outside the list entirely.
Is a dust mask enough for sanding?
Not on its own, and not before you know what is in the coating. The order is find out what the surface is, then control at source with wet methods or on-tool extraction, then wear respiratory protection as well. A mask is the last layer rather than the plan, and on lead or asbestos it is nowhere near sufficient by itself.
What ventilation do I need for spraying indoors?
Mechanical, sized for the space and the application rate, running before you start and continuing after you finish while vapour clears. Opening a window is not ventilation for spraying. Where the space cannot be ventilated adequately, the honest answer is that it is not a space to spray in.
When does a room become a confined space?
When it is enclosed or partly enclosed, not designed for continuous occupancy, and carries a risk from the atmosphere, engulfment or restricted access. A plant room being sprayed can satisfy all three because of what you are putting into the air, even though the same room is unremarkable on any other day.
Whose job is the extraction, mine or the builder?
Yours to specify and to refuse to work without, and the principal contractor to make possible. That split strands people, because a painter arriving to spray a plant room is rarely the person who controls the ventilation in it, so the control that keeps you safe is not one you can fit yourself. Put the requirement in the statement before you arrive, rather than finding out on the day that the only opening is the door you came in through. A control nobody can deliver is not a control, it is a note.