Ensuring Head Protection in Cold Weather

How to stay warm without sacrificing head safety when temperatures drop.

• By Ryan Barnes
• Nov 19, 2024

Outdoor workers exposed to cold and windy conditions are at risk of cold stress and require effective clothing accessories that will enable them to stay comfortable, safe, and productive. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) Cold Stress Safety and Health Guide, serious cold-related illness and injuries may occur when the body cannot warm itself, and permanent tissue damage and death may result.

Issues such as frostbite–the most common injury resulting from exposure to severe cold, usually affecting fingers, toes, nose, ears, cheeks, and the chin–can lead to tissue death and potentially amputation. If caught early, workers can prevent permanent damage. The other major consequence of cold exposure is hypothermia, which occurs when the body’s core temperature drops below 95 degrees F (34 degrees C). As the body temperature drops, shivering gives way to drowsiness or exhaustion, confusion, shallow breathing, irregular heartbeat, slurred speech, loss of coordination and, in worst-case scenarios, unconsciousness or even death.

As a result, employers have a duty to protect workers from recognized hazards, including cold weather stress; however, it’s important that workers do not jeopardize the effectiveness of existing PPE in the process. When the temperature drops, outdoor workers must layer up, including their heads, where up to 10 percent of body heat is lost. Head layers may include beanies, stocking caps, balaclavas, or a hooded sweatshirt that is pulled up over the head before placing the hard hat or safety helmet. 

While such materials can keep the worker comfortable in cold and windy weather, they may also inadvertently increase the likelihood of a head injury in the event of a slip, trip, or fall, assuming the gear is not purpose-built for a safety helmet. Workers need gear that will mitigate the effects of cold stress without sacrificing the effectiveness of their safety helmet. The before-mentioned hood-under-a-safety-helmet example may keep a worker warm, but it will more than likely reduce the effectiveness of a safety helmet during a job site incident, thus increasing the risk of serious injury. 

Purpose-Built Headgear for Defeating Cold Weather Stress

To ensure that workers can stay comfortable without sacrificing workplace safety, it’s imperative to provide workers with garments that are purpose-built for the required PPE, especially hard hats and safety helmets. 

Many hard hat and safety helmet suppliers are now providing specially designed helmet liners, skull caps, and other accessories that are designed to be worn in tandem with the specific headgear in question. This way, workers can reduce the impacts of cold exposure without sacrificing the effectiveness of the safety helmet. Properly fitted cold-weather accessories ensure that the safety helmet is less likely to slip out of place or slip off entirely during a slip, trip, or fall. For example, STUDSON’s helmet liners for its SHK-1 Type II safety helmets prevent slippage and help maintain a better fit compared to generic products that may not ensure the same fit or comfort. 

Especially in sub-zero temperatures, workers may become exposed to additional surface challenges that may not otherwise be present in temperatures above freezing. OSHA’s Surfaces Standard specifically requires employers to keep all walking-working surfaces clean, dry, and free of hazardous conditions. In cold temperatures, excess water can quickly freeze, causing previously clear surface areas to become slick and dangerous for workers who might not perceive the ice or frost buildup. This is especially true if the worker becomes distracted by an ill-fitting safety helmet and/or their visibility is reduced by poorly fitted headwear accessories that do not conform with the wearer’s safety helmet.

Designing Head Protection with Cold Weather in Mind

With the use of additional clothing for protection from the elements, workers may need to make adjustments to their respective safety helmets to ensure proper fit. Safety helmets especially can become distracting, uncomfortable, and unsafe when not properly fitted. Those issues can be exacerbated during cold weather. Wearing heavy gloves especially can make critical safety helmet adjustments difficult in the moment. Therefore, PPE providers are looking to make safety helmets easier to adjust and fit.

HighBar Systems has created a new mono-strap system for safety helmets that is buckle-free and originally developed for action sports. Compared to the traditional four-point, y-shaped nylon harness found on most type II safety helmets today, if at all, the HighBar polymer strap arms offer a more proper fit system that can be easily rotated up for storage and then quickly rotated down below the chin when in use. The malleable HighBar system can also be easily adjusted with a twist dial on the bottom to tighten or loosen the mono-strap with one hand, even when wearing heavy winter gloves.

Twist dials compatible with heavy gloves are also effective for quickly adjusting the helmet fit around the head. Wearing a fleece skullcap might require the worker to widen the helmet’s fit to accommodate the additional layer. Therefore, it’s important for workers to actively adjust their respective safety helmets whenever a new accessory or garment is worn under the helmet. Conversely, if the temperature should warm and the fleece liner is no longer necessary, the worker will need to adjust the helmet once more to maintain proper fit after the fleece liner is removed. 

Protecting Workers from Temperature Extremes

With the changing climate, both hot and cold temperature extremes are on the rise. Therefore, it’s important for organizations to prepare for not only heat stress but also cold stress as the seasons change and the air turns crisp and cold. Thanks to a growing number of purpose-built clothing options for specific PPE, especially safety helmets, workers can stay comfortable without sacrificing protection for other common safety issues, especially slips, trips, and falls.

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.