In today’s world, the small residential roofer is at a disadvantage. They don’t have all the necessary equipment for most solutions or the manpower needed to do them in a timely manner. They make do with aging equipment, tools and even the trucks that they drive.

A monitor to keep an eye on safety issues is virtually nonexistent. No one tells them that they have to clean up accumulating debris, no repair crews come in to assess and fix equipment, and OSHA is not on site to document risks.

This post arose from an email that Mike Hess sent me recently. Mike is a Residential & Commercial Sales rep for Affordable Roofing and is no stranger to the ladder. Included in the email were some photos that you are seeing here now. They are only humorous, in that they make you shake your head in disbelief and wonder.

This Is Not A Step

If memory serves me correctly, the warning labels on ladders came about when a consumer stepped on the top rung of a ladder, had a nasty fall, and then attempted to sue the ladder manufacturer for not warning him that it was unsafe to do so. This was one in the many frivolous lawsuits back then that sparked a boom in product warning labeling.

Even with all the labeling in the world, you cannot get away from the fact that people are inherently ignorant. This page is a testament to what goes on every single day. As is this page and this page.

Safety First

According to OSHA, falls from an elevated height account for one third of all deaths in construction. Between the years of 1995-1999, OSHA documented approximately one fall per day and the trend is on the rise. Therefore, it is important that safety and health programs contain provisions to protect workers from falls on the job.

You risk falling if ladders are not safely positioned each time they are used. While you are on a ladder, it may move and slip from its supports. You can also lose your balance while getting on or off an unsteady ladder. Falls from ladders can cause injuries ranging from sprains to death.


So, in the words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus, “Let’s be careful out there”.

Finding quality bloggers who write about the Roofing Industry is challenging. Quite frankly they are few and far between. In the past few days of searching, I have come across several that were no more than spam efforts of cut and paste jobs from a popular free article site.

In an effort to wade through the noise, we have added a new section to Roof Info which aggregates the latest posts from legitimate blogs. The Roofing Blog Feeds section is accessible via the main navigation menu item labled Feeds.

Currently we have a few roofing blogs of note. In no particular order, they are:

• Solar Shingles – A Blogspot blog dedicated to solar roofing.
• RC Columns – The syndicated Columns feed from Roofing Contractor magazine.
• RC Features – The syndicated Feature Articles feed from Roofing Contractor magazine.

More feeds will be added as they become known to us. If you know of a blog that would fit in, drop us a comment below and we will look into it.