I blaim my bad feet on cheap safety shoes, provided by my employer, where I work now, asked to buy our own, as when volunteering so people may only work 5 days a year.
People are often unaware that their feet spread (widen) with age, but also that the lasts on which many boots are made are fundamentally too narrowfor a lot of people, especially when you consider that you often need to wear them with a pair of thick socks in winter, so I'll reiterate the advice given above - ALWAYS try safety footwear on
whilst wearing your winter work socks before buying them. If they are tight or in the least bit uncomfortable when you try them on, they will be ten times wirse at the end of an 8 or 10 hours on your feet. And no, despite the salesman saying so, they won't break in to your feet
Wear boots which aren't wide enough and you risk bunnions and/or club toes - both permanent and unfixable, and will make walking in later life painful in more advanced instances
But now they are asking for CAT something, and I have said OK you provide the boots.
Do you mean category SBP or S1P? Personally if any external work is required, you should look for category S3.
S1 is the minimum protection class (for toes only), but lacks midsole puncture resistance. For that reason they are rarely permitted anywhere I work these days
SB has heal and toe protection, but still lacks midsole puncture protection.
I think you really need that midsole puncture protection on sites (lots of nsils, screws and bolts to spoil your day) so the minimum boot category for your own safety should be SBP (SB with anti-puncture sole)
But neither S1 or SB are waterproof, so for exterior work you ideally want boots to category S3, which are like SBP, but are waterproof
In terms of the protection type, older style boots have steel toe, heel and midsole protection - more modern (more expensive) boots use composite (Kevlar, carbon fibre, etc) protections which are considerably lighter
The minimum I buy for site work is S3, with composite protection. But they aren't cheap
There are also different styles of boot. For site work elastic-sided dealer boots and pull on rigger boots have more or less been banned by the big firms
because they come off too easily (e.g. when crossing very muddy areas in winter) leaving you with no protection - whilst safety trainers leave your ankles exposed all the time to projecting scaffolding tubes, steels, masonry, etc and are similarly unsuitable and hence frowned on or banned. So probably best to stick to lace-up boots with a decent amount of ankle support and ankle side protection
So check with firm first before buying any.
I can but concur
