Dustin: We'll break again into commercial versus something residential.
Commercial roofing, we see fall protection systems being used quite a bit, whether it's
guardrail systems that go around the outside of
the outside of the structure so that we're protecting everybody on the inside without
having to put up active fall arrest equipment.
We also see roofers more and more often working with building owners to put permanently in
place anchor points and maybe permanently installed horizontal lifelines so that protects,
not only the workers while they're doing the roofing, but we have fall protection for maintenance
or other activities that would be happening once the roofing is done.
We see counterweighted anchors that are brought up to the roof, there's also mobile anchors
that I've seen that can go on the roof and provide anchor points for traditional fall
arrest systems.
I've seen a lot of fall restraint systems being used in commercial, low sloped roofing
as well.
There's a lot of different things that I see our commercial low slope roofers using, and
a lot of people are doing that fairly fairly well.
When it comes to the residential side of roofing, is where there's a lot of work that can still
be done and a lot of methods that can still be
looked at.
The perception I think in a lot of the residential roofing is, I'm only going to be here for
a couple days, the systems that I would be putting in place are going to slow me down,
or actually increase the hazard to my workers, rather than decrease the hazard.
I also hear a lot from residential roofing that, if I invest in the right methods and
in the right solutions for my workers, now I have to charge more; and
the people who are trying to get by, and that aren't going to implement these same levels
of protection are going to make it so that I can't compete in the
marketplace.
They're either going to drive the price down to where I can't get jobs, or they're going
to cut into my profit margins so that I can't stay in business.
The truth is that in residential roofing, we have to do a much better job across the
board.
We have to make sure that that industry is aware and educated about what the hazards
are and what the solutions are.
They have to know that there are solutions that can go on the roof that are temporary,
that aren't going to penetrate the outside of the roof or cause a risk for water intrusion
later on.
There are very temporary, disposable anchors that they can use on top of the roof.
So, when they're finishing, and they're putting the ridge cap on at the end, they pound the
anchors down and a ridge cap right over the top of them.
Nobody knows they were ever in place, but as soon as there was any sheathing on top
of that roof, they could have anchors that were put in place.
There are systems that can go up on the ridge of a roof that hold more than one worker.
You can have systems that can hold up to four workers off of one certified anchor point,
or engineered style anchor point.
There are also horizontal lifelines that can be temporarily installed on a roof that allow
workers to move back and forth across the roof, connect more than one worker, up to
two workers, and use the ropes and rope grabs up and down as they're going from the eaves
up to the peak doing that roofing.
It provides a lot of mobility; they can set up a fall restraint system very easily that
way.
If the companies that are involved in this residential roofing really take a look at
what the roof is, how it�s laid out, and plan for their fall arrests so that they don't
have swing falls off the gable ends.
There are ways to set these systems up so that maybe we're working in more restraint
than we are in fall arrest.
Could it take longer to do the job than it would without having any protection?
Probably so.
Is it going to mean educating themselves and their workers to the hazards and how to properly
set their systems up?
Absolutely.
But, it is definitely the right thing to do, because when we look at the injuries, and
the falls, and the fatalities from falls from heights that people are falling from are right
around that eve and ridge height on single level residential homes.
Which leads me to believe that we see a lot more falls off of the residential sector,
and a lot more injuries than we are really in the commercial side of things, where it's
being policed a little bit more, where we have more safety professionals that are working
in that area.
In the residential side, we probably don't have the same level of safety professional,
in many cases, helping them, and educating them to the hazards and how to do things correctly.