Roofer madness...

[Feltwell]

Certainly when I was up the scaffold I had to keep reminding myself not to walk backwards etc.

Yes, stepping back to admire your handywork is not a great idea!

I have worked at height with a harness on (essential in my case - I was on a partially completed bridge about 80' over the M62, trucks whizzing past below as I walked out on the bridge beams, no bridge deck in place yet!) and they are very restrictive. There's no way you'd get a "normal" roofer to wear one. There is always a risk to working at height, but with proper scaffolding on a roofing job the risk should be limited to you rolling down the roof slope and smacking into the scaffolding at eaves level, if proper toe boards and handrails are in place.

Be scared of the ground, not heights. It's the ground that hurts you. :wink:

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Live in MK!!!? :shock: I think not Joce, it's bad enough living on the edges of the creeping boundary, and I don't think your feet would be any warmer! I'm not sure how long it will be before our little Georgian market town will be completely swamped!

 

[philmac1944]

Something odd about these pics...the roofer appears to be walking along the ridge towards the scaffolding
and later behind him, on the pitch, are several loose tiles. The guttering looks ok.
:?:

 

[Penners]

He looks like and imminent candidate for the Darwin Awards:

http://www.darwinawards.com/

I can remember seeing a guy doing something very similar on the roof of the cafe at the top of Mont Blanc. Part of the building overhangs an almost vertical drop of a squillion metres. He was standing on the pitched roof, shovelling snow down into the void, without any kind of safety harness.

My shouts of "you're mad!" were greeted with a typical Gallic shrug.

 

[MdB]

I've climbed all over the UK and Europe on all sorts of rock in all sorts of conditions. I've dangled over the edge of things in rather spectacular settings and have had great times.

Ladders scare the hell out of me though as do roofs if unsecured. Add ice into the situation and it is just so stupid it is beyond words.

Give me a rope though and something suitable to tie it to and I'll go anywhere.

 

[Flyfisher]

There is always a risk to working at height, but with proper scaffolding on a roofing job the risk should be limited to you rolling down the roof slope and smacking into the scaffolding at eaves level, if proper toe boards and handrails are in place.

Absolutely. I'm not particularly great with heights but I think a lot of it is to do with the risk factor. I never felt particularly bothered when working on our roof because of the solid scaffolding all around it and for the reasons Feltwell described. I'm far less happy fiddling about with guttering at the top of a ladder and I've been known to tie the top of the ladder through a window to stop it moving. I've also invested in scaffolding towers and although a bit more set-up is needed, I feel much better than when using a ladder.

I suppose that any height-worker with a few years under their belt has, by definition, acquired an adequate sense of safety. The chap that fitted our chimney liner thought nothing of standing on the chimney with no restraints. But it doesn't take much to have a serious accident. A friend of mine fell off a ladder (over-reaching while painting - a classic scenario apparently) and chipped a vertebrae in his lower back. The Doc said he was lucky because the bone fragment was ejected away from the spine rather than being driving in, which would have probably paralysed him. He made a full recovery but he tends to avoid ladders nowadays.

Be scared of the ground, not heights. It's the ground that hurts you. :wink:

Yes, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the bottom.

 

[Penners]

it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the bottom

Well, that chap doesn't look like any Flyfisher of my acquaintance, so who did you blackmail to tackle a python while balanced on your chimney-top?

 

[Flyfisher]

Dead right it wasn't me!

It was a nice chap from The Firing Squad in Kings Lynn. He was also very complimentary about the solidity of the chimney. I obviously looked rather quizzical at that point because he quickly added that a lot chimneys on 'these old houses' move around a bit when you stand on them. :shock:

 

[Penners]

The Firing Squad

Well, that thing he's wresting with looks considerably larger than a .303 to me.

 

[Inspector John]

The roofer is an idiot. :shock: :x
His too complacent till one day splat!!! and then a more tightening up of H&S :roll: :x

 

[chippy]

This is an extreme case, but the reason why perfectly sane people do such things is because if they don't, the punter will give the job to someone who will. Safe access costs money and believe me there are plenty of people who just want a quick cheap job doing and don't give a toss whether you break your neck. I certainly don't like working at height without a scaffold, but Iv'e done it plenty of times because the punter nearly always goes for the cheapest quote. H&S should crack down on the employers not the guys taking the risks, then there would be a fair and level playing field and a lot less accidents.

 

[Inspector John]

Thats the trouble with reparing Chimneys. Much of the expense is on the scaffolding

 

[DaveBrigg]

H&S should crack down on the employers not the guys taking the risks

If you mean the householder, then this is totally impractical. How many people needing roof repairs are aware that H&S regulations exist, let alone be able to understand and enforce them.
We also don't know what the bloke on the roof charged for his repair; maybe he wasn't the cheapest, and just kept the money saved. What is a fair price for climbing someone else's scaffold and repairing the gutter from above with no obvious tools?

 

[MdB]

Just had to post this...

 

[Penners]

Nice one!

Here are a couple more classics:

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