Building site signs for three audiences: the public, visitors and the crew

Building site signs are read by three very different people. The public walking past need to know to keep out. Visitors at the gate need the rules and where to report. The crew inside need to know where the hazards are today, where the vehicles run and which skip takes what. Plan the signs around those three readers and you’ll rarely miss one. Below, each audience gets its own section, with the sizes and materials we make them in.

Why the signs matter as much as the fence #

Two sets of rules sit behind this. The CDM Regulations 2015 put the principal contractor in charge of keeping unauthorised people off site and making sure every person who comes on, from labourer to visiting client, is told the rules and the risks. The 1996 safety signs regulations then say that where a real risk is left after everything else has been done, there has to be a sign for it. A sign supports the fence, the supervisor and the induction talk. It never does their job for them. What goes up is decided by your phase plan and risk assessments, and the HSE’s construction section explains who is responsible for what.

Audience one: the public on the other side of the fence #

Passers-by, neighbours and, most importantly, children. The message is short and blunt: this is dangerous, stay out.

• Public warning boards. A board telling the public that building sites are dangerous, or a straight Danger Construction Site board, facing outwards at eye level on the hoarding or fence.
• Heras fence banners. The mesh Heras banner is sized to a whole temporary fence panel, 3300 × 1800 mm, with a little spare round the edge for ties. It’s hemmed and eyeletted 260gsm mesh and takes six working days on the Standard service. On a sheltered run, there’s a smaller PVC version too.
• Scaffold banners. Scaffold banners start at 3 × 2 m and go right up to 5 × 3 m. A big one doubles as the “who’s building this” advert for the whole street.
• Hoarding boards. On longer town-centre jobs, a solid hoarding is tidier and harder to climb. Printed hoarding boards go up to full 8 ft × 4 ft sheets, in Dibond or thick Foamex. Lay out the artwork across the whole run before you order, so no phone number gets sliced in half where two boards meet.

Mesh or PVC on a fence?

Mesh, almost always. Wind passes through the little holes. Solid PVC behaves like a sail: it pushes on the fence blocks and, in a gust, a whole row of panels can go over like dominoes. Keep PVC for sheltered stretches or fences with extra bracing. Our pages on Heras fence banners and choosing mesh or PVC have the detail.

Audience two: visitors and deliveries at the gate #

A driver with a delivery, a surveyor, a client on a walk-round: the gate is their first and sometimes only briefing. That makes it the busiest spot for building site signs.

• A site safety board. Our eight-message board gathers the main rules onto one panel; the safety notice board and a couple of other layouts cover the same ground differently. Choose A1, A0 or the in-between 700 × 1000 mm, on Correx, Foamex or Dibond.
• Entrance and reporting. A Caution Site Entrance sign for drivers, and a sign sending every visitor to the site office first.
• PPE. Hard hat and boots messages as a rigid sign or a 1200 × 800 mm PPE site banner, which is harder to miss on a busy fence.

How big should the gate board be?

Our working rule of thumb: each 25 mm of board height buys you about a metre of distance at which it can still be read. In practice:

A gate tucked well away from the road wants the next size up. Fix the board on a post or the fence next to the gate, at head height and square-on to anyone walking in. Never on the gate: it swings open and the rules vanish just as people need them. Our page on letter height and viewing distance goes further.

Audience three: the crew inside #

Once inside, building site signs stop keeping people out and start steering them safely round a place that changes every week. The site sign range covers four jobs, mostly as wide-format A3 to A1 panels.

• Hazards. Open excavations, things falling from height, roofs you can go through, work going on above your head, cranes.
• Vehicles. Banksman needed for reversing, people crossing, the site speed limit, lorries about. Down a long haul road a small sign disappears, so the speed and walkway messages come as banners too.
• Directions. Arrows to the office and walkways, the route for site traffic, and closed footpath and diversion signs. Put one at each end of a closure and double-check the arrows.
• Waste. One sign per stream (timber, plasterboard, inert, general) and a polite one about loading skips properly.

Ladders, lifting gear and access kit can carry their own inspection labels, so the last check date travels with the item.

Board or banner: match it to the length of the job #

Keep building site signs honest #

• Move signs as the work moves. A warning for a hazard that’s gone teaches everyone to ignore warnings.
• If there’s a second way in, even a side gate for people on foot, give it the same PPE and visitor signs as the main one.
• After a blowy night, and on every weekly walk-round, look at the ties and fixings.

Ordering #

Get the order in a couple of weeks before day one on site. Standard times: 3 working days for Correx signs and safety boards, 4 for PVC Heras banners, 5 for site banners, 6 for mesh. The clock starts once the order and the artwork are both confirmed. A banner longer than 3 m, or a board larger than A0, adds £15 to the order’s delivery. Delivery to the UK mainland is £7.95, and nothing on orders of £100 or more after discounts; see the delivery page for other areas. Need a whole site’s worth, or wording we don’t stock? Ask through get a quote.