Safety mesh is designed to prevent internal falls through a roof. If securely fixed, safety mesh provides fall protection for roof installers and offers long-term protection against falling for maintenance and repair workers.

Safety mesh does not prevent falls from the edge of a roof or through holes in a roof, so it should always be used in conjunction with appropriate edge protection, guard rails or fall-arrest systems.

Safety mesh should comply with AS/NZS 4389 Safety mesh, which specifies the minimum requirements for the design, construction, testing and installation of safety mesh for use in domestic, commercial and industrial building applications.

The mesh should be formed from 2 mm diameter wire of not less than 450 MPa tensile strength, welded into a mesh with the longitudinal wires not more than 150 mm apart and the cross wires not more than 300 mm apart.

Safety mesh should be installed in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions by competent persons, who should be protected against the risk of falling by using appropriate control measures such as scaffolding, elevating work platforms or fall-arrest systems.

Particular care is required to ensure that the mesh is securely connected to the structure and the overlap between adjacent sections of mesh is sufficient to generate the necessary strength to resist the force of a person falling onto it. The safety mesh should be covered by the roof cladding as soon as reasonably practicable after it has been installed.