Ladder Safety at Work: Checks, Setup and Common Mistakes

There is a persistent myth that ladders are banned at work. They are not. What the law expects is that you use a ladder only when it is the sensible choice — for short-duration, low-risk tasks where heavier access equipment would not be reasonably practicable. Where a job is long, repetitive or carries a higher risk, a podium step, tower or powered platform is usually the better tool.

Is a ladder the right choice at all?

Before you reach for a ladder, pause and ask whether it suits the task. A useful rule of thumb is that ladders are best for light work of short duration, typically measured in minutes rather than hours, where you can keep three points of contact and do not need to overreach or carry heavy loads. If you find yourself stretching sideways, leaning a tool against the wall, or going up and down repeatedly, the ladder is probably the wrong choice.

A ladder is a means of access, not a workbench. If you need both hands and a stable base for the task, a platform is almost always safer.

Pre-use checks

Every ladder should be given a quick visual inspection before each use. This takes under a minute and catches the most common defects:

• Stiles (the long side rails) — check for bends, cracks or splits.
• Rungs or steps — make sure none are missing, loose, bent or worn smooth.
• Feet — confirm the anti-slip feet are present, clean and not worn away.
• Locking mechanisms on stepladders and extension catches — check they engage fully.
• Contamination — wipe off mud, grease or wet paint that could make rungs slippery.

If a ladder fails any of these checks, take it out of use immediately and label it so nobody climbs it by mistake. A damaged ladder should be repaired by a competent person or scrapped — never patched up on site.

Setting up safely

Most ladder falls come down to a handful of setup errors. Get these right and you eliminate the majority of the risk:

• Firm, level ground. Never stand a ladder on loose materials, bricks or boxes to gain height.
• The correct angle. A leaning ladder should sit at roughly a 75-degree angle — about one unit out for every four units up.
• Secure the top and bottom. Tie the ladder off where possible, or have a second person foot it for short tasks.
• Mind the doorway. If a ladder is near a door, lock or guard the door so it cannot be opened into the ladder.
• Extend above the landing. When climbing to a higher level, the ladder should project around a metre above the stepping-off point.

Using the ladder

Once the ladder is set, keep your body within the stiles, maintain three points of contact, and never stand on the top few rungs of a leaning ladder or the top step of a stepladder unless it is specifically designed for it. Carry tools in a belt or hoist them up separately rather than in your hands. If you cannot complete the task without leaning out, climb down and move the ladder — it takes seconds and prevents the classic sideways topple.

Common mistakes to avoid

The same errors crop up again and again: overreaching instead of moving the ladder, using a damaged or makeshift ladder, resting it on an unstable surface, climbing with materials in both hands, and using a ladder for a job that really needed a platform. None of these are exotic — they are everyday shortcuts that go wrong on an ordinary day.

Ladder use is woven into the wider duties covered in our guide to the Irish work at height regulations, and it sits alongside the broader controls in our preventing falls from height article. Treat the ladder as one tool among several, choose it deliberately, and use it with care — that is the whole of ladder safety in a sentence.