At work, they are building a new handicapped ramp. Typical for almost any type of construction sites I’ve seen in my whole life, they erect a fence around it with a type of plastic green sheet attached to it so you can barely make out what’s going on over the fence.
What’s the big secret? I get that they would want a fence to keep out people trying to write their names in the wet concrete, but why don’t they allow people full view of it? Even back in the old days (presumably), they’d erect large wooden fences around building sites. Those I can understand is more of a safety issue, you don’t want kids to be playing around in that. But tiny little construction project like a ramp seems like a stupid thing to try and keep hidden.
And it’s not like they’re doing a great job of that either. The green mesh can be seen through, and there are holes purposefully built into it. Why the big secret? Just put up a regular wire fence and lets us watch!
I don’t have an answer, but I’ll gladly share an amusing anecdote related to the OP (and about which I wrote a thread many many years ago).
A building was going up in town (FTR, it was a diner for a few months, then sat empty for almost a year or more, and is now an AT&T store). At the construction site were several signs: one for the general contractor doing the construction, one for the union representing the contractor’s workers, one the subcontractor doing the plumbing, one for the union representing the plumbers, one for the subcontractor doing the electricity, one for the union representing the elctricians, and one for the bank financing the construction.
Nowhere at the construction site was a sign indicating, you know, what the hell the building was going to be.
Might it be a safety thing? If something throws off rubble or splinters or splatters or whatever, it prevents them from hitting some passerby. This might not be needed for some jobs, but it’s probably just standard procedure that the company always follows, rather than sitting down and deciding every time whether it’s strictly necessary.
It might just be the fencing material the contractor had available, or the least expensive means of providing the protection around the workzone required by law, or to avoid liability. The obscured view might be irrelevant.
Also, to stop casual passersby from glancing in and saying “Oooh! Unprotected sellable (tools, raw materials, lumber)! I shall climb this fence and abscond therewith!”
The extra step of having to look through the hole in the netting rather than being able to see the unprotected goods from, say, across the street will cut down on a fairly high percentage of potential thievery.
Safety is probably number one. The area may be in disarray and not meet any standards. Workers don’'t want any interference. Projects invite vandalism. Workers may need to leave tools on the site for efficiency. People steal things. There are federal and state rules that cover work. You virtually can’t dig a hole without a silt fence unless the work is temporary. Construction companies make work site policies in a one size fits all mode.
Aside from the obvious facts, I believe workers rather enjoy the privacy of not having people looking over their shoulders.
In my city, in the UK, they put often glass or perspex windows in the fences round building sites these days (especially where public works are involved) so that we do get to stand around watching other people work
That’s the rule, rather than the exception, around here. New construction always has eight or more signs, but not a single one mentions what is going up.
