A Directive from Europe is expected next year that will add to the pressure on masonry companies to restrict the use of vibrating tools, especially pneumatic hammers.

The Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental Executive (HSE) announced in 1999 that it would be clamping down on masonry companies because the industry is notorious for its sufferers of Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS), usually manifesting itself as vibration white finger.

Lately HSE inspectors have been at S&J Whiteheads in Oldham, the company recently bought by the Linford Group of Lichfield, where field tests on vibration reduced pneumatic hammers showed they failed to live up to the manufacturers\' claims.

It is the prolonged use of vibration tools that causes the numbing of fingers and the distinctive whitening of them known as vibration white finger.

The condition was classified as an industrial disease after former coalminers won their claim for compensation in 1998. The Government made an immediate interim payout totalling £3million to 3,000 miners. Since then £XXmillion has been paid out to XXXX miners.

After that a case was brought by council workers in Liverpool who said they had been injured during an extensive tree-felling programme during the Dutch Elm Disease outbreak in the 1970s. The council paid out £6million in compensation.

And eight employees of North West Water have just received £1.2million (£150,000 each) in compensation for a HAVS claim.

To date there has been no claim made against a masonry company and many masons seem to resent the intrusion of the HSE into their working practices. Neither have there been any masonry companies prosecuted by the HSE.

The HSE restriction on using vibration tools is described as 2.8m/s2 (A8), which means that is the level of vibration at which it should be safe to use a tool for eight hours a day. At 4m/s2 it would be safe to use the tool for four hours a day, at 5.6m/s2 the limit is two hours and at 8m/s2 one hour.

At S&J Whiteheads, HSE tests of Aloisi hammers with sleeves operated with a 15mm chisel recorded 7.76m/s2, says Richard Chandler of Combined Masonry Supplies, the UK distributors of the tool. That means they should be used for less than two hours a day by the operator. According to the manufacturers, tests put the tool with the sleeve at 3.64m/s2.

Richard Chandler has expressed previously his concern about HAVS and the discrepancy between the claims of manufacturers and HSE tests that have appeared with all hammers available in the UK. However he says: We are cautiously optimistic we are doing our best and moving the trade in the right direction.

Geoff Chisham, a specialist HSE inspector for noise and vibration, says the HSE exposure limit is based on 25 years of research. He says that, currently, the HSE test measures the vibration level in three axes and takes the worst. He believes the European Directive next year will mean the sum of the three readings will be taken.

However, he says that will not alter the HSE exposure limit because it will simply be adjusted to take account of the new way of recording the data.

He conceded that different vibration levels could be recorded from the same tool depending on variables such as the strength of the mason using it, the air pressure in the line and the hardness of the stone. However, he said it was the individual user who needed to be protected so it was the vibration levels when in use by that particular person that were important.

What the HSE hopes and expects to result from the interest it is showing in masonry companies is a demand from masonry companies for better tools from suppliers.

The tools have already got better, says Geoff Chisham, and we are looking for more improvements still. The industry employers have to put their requests into the manufacturers for a solution and the manufacturer who produces the best tool will win.

As well as the vibration directive expected next year (its title is Vibration Physical Agents Directive), a European Directive is also expected concerning noise, although its conditions should be more easily met through the use of personal ear protectors.

Note: A stone industry health and safety group was established last year between HSE, Stone Federation Great Britain (SFGB) and National Association of Memorial Masons (NAMM) to discuss various health and safety issues including HAVS. As a result, a masons\' guide to HAVS has been published and is available from SFGB and NAMM. And HSE representatives will be at the SFGB annual conference this month (20-21 September) to talk about HAVS and respirable silica, another health and safety issue facing masons.