ROOF SAFETY; DOES NOBODY CARE??

So there's this thing called roof safety.......Or at least there used to be. Guys, I'm not here to harp on anyone but I thought it was only right that I say what's on my mind.

Where's the safety these days. I mean come on, unsafe roofers are the reason that our insurance rates (for those who actually have insurance)go up. I periodically get emails from the coffeeshop about articles. The last one I got showed 2 guys drinking water. The title was to "Keep Hydrated". What about the safety harnesses they don't have on?? What about t-shirts they seem to forgot? Come on. I read another article about a guy falling off a roof. Where was his harness?? I've been in this business my entire life. I know the safety hassles but until you actually have a serious event, people just keep ignoring it. Don't want OSHA to stop by your jobsite or are you tired of them stopping by?? Guess what, most of that occurance is our fault as roofers not going by the rules.

I was on a job last year and my customer wanted me on another job (I am a subcontractor), so he had another crew replace me on the one I was on. I was coating a metal roof with a ton of translucent panels on it. I had plywood to cover them when in those areas. We had our harnesses as well. A few days after we left that job, the crew that replaced us used nothing. Not one bit of fall protection. A man stepped on one of the translucent panels, fell 30 feet and landed on his head on a concrete floor. To this day, I don't know if he lived or not.

Gentlemen please. Get with it and think smart. Sure, it may take a little bit longer, but it is worth it. Every roofer not being safe not only jeopardizes the lives of their workers which affects their families, only makes all of us look like idiots. it's not fair for the guys that DO go by OSHA REGULATIONS!! For those of you that DO follow OSHA regulations, I thank you.

People that send this website pictures of people not using safety should not be posted on this website because you know better! In fact, I strongly encourage the roofers that are smart enough to practice good safety, to call into OSHA when they see these guys not representing our trade in a safe manner! It's those guys that make all of us look bad and quite frankly I'm tired of it. A REAL professional utilizes OSHA safety practices.

I am curious of the comments I will see on this post. Anybody sticking up for not being safe for the well being of their workers, just know that your ignorance will be obvious.

Why not wear a harness just in case? I mean it won't hurt to be 100% safe right? What's the point of not wearing it? I am always wearing it....

Right! same thoughts were going on in my mind.

I have safety harness w/ steep slope ,,and he showers 🎯🎯🎯

Basically my feeling is that self preservation is the main reason you will do a job safely, if you don't know how to be safe on a roof you shouldn't be there in the first place. Drugs and alcohol aside.

 

My brother was a roofer and at some point he got some real alcohol issues. When he turned out to be on a roof slightly drunk, my parents decided it's time to do something asap. They sent him to rehab: https://addictionresource.com/drug-rehab/men-only/ and he's still there, though he's getting better.

"I have a special link to God don't ya know and if I had wanted to spend eight to ten hours a day six days a week in a harness he would gladly have made me a mule to start with."

That's a keeper

The local safety inspector is one of my customers. The first time I did a repair on his roof, he told me he had just been hired. He had just retired from one government career and was taking on another so he could double-dip his pension. Because his roof is so scary, I wear a harness on it. He lives on the edge of a cliff and from the roof you are looking down at the tops of 60' trees.

Last time I did work for him, we had a discussion about fall protection. I pointed out that, of the people using ropes for fall protection, 90% of them would be over the edge before the rope tightened up. He said they were aware of that, that there had been much discussion about it and that they temporarily cracked down and wrote citations about it, but in the end citing people for having EFFECTIVE fall protection was hurting the companies that were trying to make their employees in compliance. Now, all that counts is making the effort.

Me, if I go to the hassle of wearing fall protection, I always keep it adjusted to where it actually will work.

I wear low-cut Redwing shoes with understated tread which has excellent grip. I wear gloves when I tear off. I wear knee protectors maybe once every five to ten years. I wear glasses and I wear ear protection when I'm running a gas-powered saw, a grinder, or a Fein tool. I wear a mask when I'm around concrete dust. For headgear I either wear a ball cap or my naked head. If I'm working below someone I'll wear a helmet. I never work below someone. I wear a safety harness when it is essential and no other time whatsoever. I'm coming up on seventy and so far everything is still working just fine, thank you. I love this job, I'm good at this job, to put it mildly, and I am proud to report that I am a free man. I have a special link to God don't ya know and if I had wanted to spend eight to ten hours a day six days a week in a harness he would gladly have made me a mule to start with. Watched a poor guy clanking back and forth while loading my 4/12 roof. One of the most pathetic things I have ever witnessed in my life. So pathetic in fact that I jumped in and helped him (three of mine for every one of his) just to shorten his own personal misery and get him out of my sight. End of sermon.

This is me in the great old shake days.

This is one of the most uncomfortable-looking, unsafe-looking roofer-types I have ever seen in my life. He does not and will not ever work anywhere near me, just so everyone is crystal clear where I stand on the subject.

Who doesn't wear a helmet?

All Desk jockeys, politicans and marketers should also wear Helmets and steel toed shoes...and duct tape. Air Conditioning is also bad for people. So we need to eliminate that from all offices. Give them plenty of water for hydration. And a sharpener for their crayons. Lots of clean diapers in case they look out the window and actually see someone move....surely they'll poop again

egg Said: Well, it may be time for a trip down linguistic lane. Per diem is related to carpe diem by the day. Woody might just be annoyed because nobody payed him what they should have to drive that motorcycle through the desert way back in the early diems. The benefits were just uplifting panoramas and self-reliance while building independence and a first-rate mind, day after day. A person can get carpal tunnel syndrome grabbing at small amounts of money on a repetitive basis. Could even happen to you while nailing on shingles though even a four cents a nail, it didnt happen to me. Minimum wage on the other hand, just gives you plain old tunnel syndrome although you could also get carpal tunnel syndrome while you were at it if you happened to be continuously clutching at the walls. Sometimes it seems like we are walled in by the tunnel of days. But one diem does not equal another diem really and hopefully never will. Each day is a unique gift. Carping per diem is not latin-based, per se or even per say. Our rugged old English has accumulated a lot of variety and that one is Scandinavian from karpa (to dispute.) There is benefit from disputation, even sometimes the carping variety. How this shakes out for anyone in particular is not for me to say, only that it is all somehow related and I get a per diem allowance for such things.

I completely agree with you.

Roofers should prevent themselves from injury. Before climbing roof they should wear helmet, boots, knee-cap and harness to ensure safety.

It is very important that professional roofers shoul abiode by roofing safety rules. They should not act careless. Before climbing roof, roofers should prevent themselves from injury. Helmets, boots, knee-cap and harness should be best friends of roofers.

I watched a great video awhile back, a Ted Talk episode. The person giving the talk made a number of great points but how those points relate to this discussion and the fog of political correctness that surrounds it comes down to this:

If it's Safety First, why would you bid on a roof project? Really. Why? If you even bid one the best you can claim is Safety Second. If you get the job why would you then send people out to do it? At that moment, the best you could claim is Safety Third. I can live with Safety Third. What I can't live with is anything dumb or sanctimonious.

"Numberless" people paralyzed or dead falling from a single story? I think not. I would say it's more likely numberless people are paralyzed BY a single "story" and I don't mean Aesop or the Illiad. "He fell with a thud and his armor rattled upon him." Beware "the pitiless bronze." Don't fight, brothers and sisters. Don't think. Don't be present in the world and enjoy it for what it is. Just don't do anything. Much safer that way.