Plastic caps for steel fence posts are inexpensive, which is why many construction sites use them. But Anthony Burr, founder of Safety Pickets, Inc., argues that the low upfront price is misleading once the full costs of failures and replacements are considered.
Burr, who spent years as a concreter working around exposed steel star pickets—the Australian term for steel T-posts—later invented a reusable steel cap for them. He compares what a contractor spends initially with what a single incident can cost afterward.
Covering 100 posts with his company’s steel caps costs roughly $250 to $300, and the caps can be reused indefinitely. In contrast, Burr points to an Australian case where posts were left uncovered and someone fell onto one. The fine alone was $115,000. “That’s just a fine,” Burr said. That figure does not include site shutdown costs, medical bills, or legal claims that may follow.
Even minor incidents add up. If a worker cuts a shin on an exposed post and needs stitches, there is a medical bill. The contractor also pays for the day of injury and any days off during recovery. “It can go into the tens of thousands easily,” Burr said.
Beyond liability, Burr says plastic caps cost more over time because they break, blow away, and become brittle in sun and rain. When comparing costs for customers switching from plastic, his company excludes liability and focuses only on replacement costs. According to Burr, covering 1,000 posts over five years with reusable steel caps results in a 60 percent saving compared with continually rebuying plastic ones. He adds that steel caps do not rust and will likely outlast the posts themselves.
Labor is another hidden cost. Plastic caps must be put on and taken off every time posts are used, a job Burr describes as one no one on site wants to do. “Every time you put them on, there’s probably half an hour. Every time you take them off, there’s another half an hour,” he said. “So it adds up quite quickly that the plastic caps aren’t actually cheaper.” The company explains how reusable steel caps cut replacement and waste on its sustainability page.
Burr also highlights a risk many contractors overlook: people who should not be on the property. If someone wanders onto a site after hours—even someone who has been drinking—and gets hurt on an exposed post, the owner can still face legal action. “They shouldn’t have, but they have every right to be able to sue,” he said. For US contractors and property owners, where legal claims after injuries are common, that exposure is worth factoring into any decision about how exposed steel is covered.
For contractors still using plastic caps because nothing has gone wrong yet, Burr’s advice is blunt. “If something can go wrong, then it will,” he said. “So just the labor costs, the liability, the headaches, and the stress are all hidden costs. Hidden costs that will add up over time. You may not have to outlay it. But it catches up very quickly.”
A useful exercise is to price it out for your own site: the cost of replacement caps over several years, the labor hours spent putting them on and taking them off, and the realistic cost of a single injury. Set that next to the one-time cost of a reusable option and the decision tends to get clearer. Safety Pickets, Inc. designs and manufactures a patented, reusable steel safety cap for star pickets and T-posts, currently sold across Australia and expanding into the US market. Learn more at safetypickets.com.
