After eight years of work, OSHA has finally produced a new fall protection standard for construction. According to the new rule, due to take effect in February, whenever workers are more than 6 feet off the ground, contractors must provide measures like guardrails, safety nets, lifelines, and body harnesses. Builders have long objected that hassling with gadgets such as lifelines or safety nets complicates the job — and even increases the dangers. The surprise this time is that OSHA agrees. Residential builders helped write the new OSHA rules, and residential job sites are treated as a special case. Home builders will not always need to provide physical fall protection. In fact, OSHA even names some of the times when physical fall protection devices may not be the
