Bullard Hard Hat Chin Strap Mistakes, Electric Fence vs Garden Fence, and Fire Alarm Tests: Lessons from a Safety Manager

What to do if your crew works at height: Bullard hard hat chin strap first

In 2021, a field supervisor called me about a worker who bent over to clear a jammed conveyor. His hard hat slid off and fell near moving rollers. No one was hurt, but a client safety rep saw it happen, and we ended up with a $1,200 fine and a one-day stop-work order.

From the outside, it looked like worker error. The reality was a procurement mistake: I had ordered hard hats without adding chin straps to the purchase order. I treated the strap as a nice-to-have add-on. For work involving ladders, tilted surfaces, machinery, or wind, it's not an extra. It's the part that keeps the helmet where it needs to be.

If you're choosing a Bullard hard hat chin strap, match the strap to your shell model and order enough for every helmet used in those jobs. When your supplier asks whether you want retention straps, the answer should be yes for any crew that climbs or leans into equipment.

Fitting matters just as much as buying. The strap should sit snug behind your ears, with the buckle centered under your chin. If you can pull the helmet off with the strap done up, it's too loose. A quick-release buckle is convenient, but keep it clean and test it once in a while, because dust will eventually jam it. (I learned this the annoying way, not the dangerous way.)

The Bullard logo check before you trust a helmet

I also learned how easy it is to end up with questionable safety gear. A year after that fine, I found used Bullard hats being resold as new through a local surplus dealer. The shells looked okay from a distance, but the date codes were missing.

A genuine Bullard hard hat has the Bullard name molded into the shell or suspension, and a label inside with the model, manufacture date, and the standard it meets. In North America, look for the ANSI/ISEA Z89.1-2014 designation on that label. If the helmet has no date code and no standard label, don't buy it. If it's already on your site, pull it from service and verify its history before letting anyone wear it.

Products that fail this check might still be real Bullard shells that were retired from service. That doesn't make them safe to use. Hard hat shells and suspensions age, and age is not something you can see from the outside. It doesn't matter how good the shell looks if you can't verify when it was made.

What to check if your site has an electric fence (and why a garden fence is not the same)

The second mistake happened in October 2023. A contractor crew was digging along our property line to run new cables. I gave them a site map with the word 'fence' written along the whole boundary. What I didn't highlight: one section was electrified. It wasn't a high-current system, but an electric fence can still deliver a serious shock, especially if someone cuts it with metal tools.

One of the crew nicked the wire, got a jolt, dropped the tool, and refused to continue. The supervisor stopped the job. The bill for the lost afternoon and rescheduling came to roughly $3,400.

I thought a fence was a fence. Turns out an electric fence and a garden fence sit at different ends of the risk scale, and they need different checks.

Electric fence: inspect the controller and ground rod, verify the voltage at the far end of the line, and check that warning signs are posted wherever people or equipment could approach. If any contractor will dig, cut, or touch that fence, it should be de-energized, isolated, or explicitly marked in the work order. Not just drawn as one more line on a map.

Garden fence / ornamental fence: this is a physical barrier, not an electrical hazard. Check it for loose posts, broken hinges, gaps underneath, and gates that don't latch. Use it to keep people where they should be, but don't apply the electric fence checklist to it. You'll waste time measuring voltage on something that doesn't carry any.

If your property has both types, keep them separate in your drawings and on your checklist. The goal is to make sure that when someone sees 'fence checked,' they know exactly which fence was checked.

If you're responsible for the building's fire alarms: how to test a fire alarm the right way

This one is not about Bullard products. It's about the same prevention-over-cure lesson. In 2022, I did our office fire alarm test the way I'd always done it: press the test button on a call point, hear the sounders, mark 'OK' in the logbook. During the annual inspection the following year, we found one smoke detector module that was not reporting to the control panel. In a real fire, that detector could have stayed silent.

The surprise wasn't that the module had failed. Hardware fails. The surprise was that I had pressed that test button every month for a year and never noticed the problem.

Here's how to test a fire alarm properly, without turning the building into an evacuation drill:

1. Tell the occupants and the monitoring company that you're running a test. If your system has a test mode, use it.
2. Test devices individually, including smoke detectors and manual call points, with the right tool or procedure. Don't rely on one button to test the whole system.
3. Confirm the control panel shows the alarm. This is the step I skipped. A device can make noise, but if the panel doesn't register the signal, you haven't verified the system.
4. Reset the system and log what you tested, including the date and the zone or device. NFPA 72, the fire alarm and signaling code used in many jurisdictions, requires inspection, testing, and maintenance schedules. Check your local requirements and follow them.

You don't have to test every device every month. But you do have to test enough of the system to know it works, and you have to record the results honestly. 'Pushed the button, all good' is not a test.

Which check belongs on your list?

If you're not sure which of these situations applies to you, ask three questions:

1. Do your people climb, bend over machinery, or work outdoors in the wind? If yes, the Bullard hard hat chin strap decision is for today, not next quarter.
2. Does your property have a fence, and could any part of it be electrified? If you answered 'I don't know,' you're already in the highest-risk scenario on this page.
3. Are you the person who signs the fire alarm test log? If yes, pretend an auditor is reading it tomorrow. Would the log show a real test, or just a button push?

If your first answer is 'maybe,' treat it as yes. If the second answer is 'I don't know,' find out before anyone else does. If the third answer makes you uneasy, good. Use that feeling to change the log before someone else changes it for you.

Five minutes of verification beats five days of correction

The checklist I built after these mistakes has caught 47 potential problems in about 18 months. I don't know exactly how much money that saved, but my records put it around $8,000 in avoided delays and rework. That's the cheapest insurance I've ever bought.

Trust me on this one.