Hard hats have been around for over 100 years, and throughout that time, workers have struggled to keep themselves warm or cool without putting themselves in danger. They are a requirement on many construction sites, so workers are always trying to find ways to make themselves more comfortable. Sure, there are ways to stay warm without a liner, but they leave the user and those around him in a dangerous position. This is where a helmet liner comes into play.
A helmet liner is designed to keep workers comfortable in all types of weather conditions. However, not everyone uses a hard hat liner. It is common to see someone wearing a hard hat over a hood or beanie. Doing this can cause your hard hat to slip off your head as it is not secured. Although it is easy to understand why someone would think this would be fine, you are putting others around you at risk.
Why would someone use a helmet liner? First off, they provide a safe form of insulation underneath your helmet. Unfortunately, a lot of people are using something such as a beanie or a hoodie. There are many safety issues with doing this. If you wear anything on your head that isn’t a helmet liner, the hard hat will not securely fit on your head. If the hard hat does not fit your head securely, it can easily fall off. Without your hard hat, you are exposed to a multitude of injuries. Imagine you are climbing up a ladder, your hard hat slips off your head, falls, and hits someone below you. This could cause a severe injury to that person, and it is easily avoidable by using a helmet liner.
Another major problem with your hard hat not securely fitting is the hard hat potentially falling from a decent height. Even if your hard hat does not hurt someone while falling or if you were uninjured when it falls off, all it takes one significant drop, and your helmet is no longer useful. Hard hats are specifically designed to withstand one life-saving impact, so if it slips off your head at a certain height and hits the ground, it is no longer effective.
When you try to insulate your hard hat with a hoodie, not only will the hard hat not be properly secured to your head but will potentially obscure your peripheral vision as well as your hearing.
Beanies provide one of the most significant issues, which is obscuring your hearing. You may not think so, but a beanie will absolutely obstruct your hearing, and if you’re driving a machine or on a worksite, you are endangering those around you if you cant hear what is going on. Another problem with the beanie is if you were to look up, the helmet could slip off your head, which leaves you exposed to injuries, and whoever was below you or next to you.
There is a multitude of benefits to why you would wear a helmet liner underneath your hard hat. The obvious being, they properly fit securely in your hard hat. This is going to be brand dependent, but you want to have a liner that is compatible with your hard hat. No beanie or hoodie will ever be compatible with a hard hat. A helmet liner is going to allow the hard hat to stay tight and fitted against your head. You will be able to look up, and not lose your helmet.
Another added benefit is the helmet liner will not obscure your hearing like a typical beanie would. There are liners specifically designed for cold weather that will keep you warm, but these liners will be much easier to hear through than a traditional beanie since they are designed to be used on worksites. In fact, many of the helmet liners will keep you warmer than a traditional hoodie or beanie would anyway. There are helmet liners that come with attachable face masks as well. For example, Carhartt makes a helmet liner with a face mask attachment. Something like this will be incredibly warm compared to having a hood on. Again, these aren’t going to obscure your peripheral vision. They are not super bulky like a hoodie would be.
A common issue seen on job sites are workers wearing baseball caps under their hard hats. At first glance, you wouldn’t see much of a problem with this. However, baseball hats often have a metal button on the top of them. The metal button significantly increases the chance of an electrical charge going through your helmet and seriously injuring you. The reason workers wear baseball caps is for both comfort and to absorb some of the sweat during the warmer months. Fortunately, there are specific helmet liners designed to keep the wearer cool. They are made out of a cooling material that will absorb sweat more efficiently than a baseball hat would. You can also purchase hard hat liners that can be pre-soaked in water before use, which activates the liner’s cooling component.
Invest in a helmet liner!
There are many benefits to a helmet liner. They are much safer than any other item you would wear under a hard hat, such as a hoodie and a beanie. This is because they are precisely fit to your hard hat, so they will be tight-fitting, which prevents your hard hat from coming off. Remember that the hard hat you are wearing is only designed to take one life-impacting blow, so if you do drop it from a decent height, it will no longer be effective. Investing in a helmet liner can potentially save you money and time.
Remember, the entire point of your hard hat is to protect you from the environment, so don’t put yourself at risk by cutting corners. If you wear a hard hat and are looking for something to keep you warm or cooler, a helmet liner is an absolute necessity.
