Stepping off a ladder onto the roof

[George E. Cawthon]

Or it can mean you push against it and kick the bottom out and you fall to the ground as you step down.

[Eigenvector]

Goddamn, and I was expecting this to be one of those "You moron" threads. I actually mountain climb too, it took me a few trips to get used to navigating ledges, and free climbs are simply impossible, but like we all seem to be saying - taking that last step onto the roof seems to be impossible.

[Bob F]

That would be a pretty silly thing to do.

Bob

[PaPaPeng]

A step ladder is unstable in any user position other than being in-line with the ladder. I once was on the third step of a 6 foot step ladder and leaned to the side to remove an electrical cord hung on a nail. Before I knew it I was on the concrete floor yelling in pain. My hip took the fall. The ladder had flipped. It was 20 minutes before the pain subsided enough for me to get up. Fortunately no bones were broken. Run the possiblity of the ladder flipping through your head. Its not hard to imagine the sequence of events.

[Goedjn]

Maybe so, but I've tried that on the end of a 32' extension ladder, and it's too heavy to control. A aluminum stabalizer weighs about 1/3rd as much and only costs $20 or so.

While you're up there, before you move from the ladder to the roof, consider driving a screw-eye under the eve, and tying the ladder in place.

[Goedjn]

Cut a hole in the roof, and install an openable skylight, and then mount one of those folding attic stairs.

>

[bobjones]

I agree but I used it for years. I never even knew there was a ladder stabilizer back when I was doing renos

My worst ladder nightmare: I used to install whirlybirds for a fixed price depending on roofing material. I learned after this to collect more information. I got a call to install a bird on a cedar roof so I gave the price and headed out in the morning. When I got to the house it was 3 stories up with a 5/12 pitch and on a hill. It had rained and it was windy. I needed a forty foot ladder just to get on the roof. A 20 foot ladder laid on the greasy cedar to get to the peak and a step ladder to sit on just to get to the other side of the roof to install the bird. Very slippery, and scary as hell.

I get up there with all my tools and the homeowner decides to go out in her yard with little kids and mow her lawn. If I drop a tool it could slide down the roof and kill someone. She can't hear me so back down the ladder around the house to tell her she can't be there. It was the scariest $60 bucks I ever earned.

[Toller]

A kindred spirit! I can't boulder more than 3' off the ground or I start trembling.

[George E. Cawthon]

Accidents often happen when people do silly things. What can happen is that the person looses their balance as they are stepping down and they grabs the ladder. If the ladder is low, maybe 1 foot above the roof line, that is less likely to happen because the person will already be squatted down against the roof.

'Course the safest solution is to have a person on the ground steady the ladder and stand so that the ladder feet can't kick out.

[Heathcliff]

As others have said, make sure the ladder extends a few feet above the roofline to give you something to grab on to.

On my ladder the feet can be positioned so that they stick into the ground a couple inches, one end of them is spiky for that. Otherwise, to secure the bottom of the ladder, put a piece of 2X4 across behind it, then use stakes, spikes, short pieces of pipe, etc. to keep the 2X4 in place. If on asphalt you can drive masonry nails through the wood into the asphalt below. Or, prop the bottom of the ladder against something sturdy like the tire of your car (just make sure other family members don't drive it away then!). To secure the top of the ladder, put a C-clamp on the gutter and tie it to that (or one on each side).

[Oren]

I agree. The flared legs can give a false sense of security. I like them best for my comfort. I have been known to stabilize my ladder with the bumper of my truck ( 28" ext on a slopped drive ). If I get shaky and I do I come down...

-- Oren

"Well, it doesn't happen all the time, but when it happens, it happens constantly."

[mm]

I borrowed a ladder when I painted my , and I was very picky then and bought a pair of ladder mittens. I returned the ladder and borrowed it again 10 years later. It had no mittens.

But in the intervening time, I found a ladder stabilizer in the mini-storage that my friend lets me clean out once in a while, when people move out and don't take all their stuff**. And that would be in the way for my frriend if I returned the ladder with that on it, plus I don't want to lose the thing.

So in short, I put the stabilizer one, and before I return the ladder, I'm taking it off.

They are great. I'm surprised they don't get even more good publicity and that I don't see them in use all the time.

**(I posted here at the time about where to buy square U-bolts, but of course if you buy the whole thing, it will have that.)

Also, if your ladder is 4 feet above the gutter, it makes getting on and off much easier.

Getting on the ladder to go down is much harder than going up.

I wouldn't say that. It's still a problem for me. But this time, with the stabilizer, I was only doing gutter spikes and didn't have occasion to get on the roof. So I know it will be better but I don't know how much.

I did go up on the roof twice while the roofer was here, once to look at what he was doing and once to put a collar on my chimney**. Because his ladder was about 3 feet taller than the gutter, it was really easy.

I think the stabilizer alone would also be a big help. Get a stabilizer and take it off when you return the ladder, or discuss it with your friend. Maybe, probably he will want it, but he'll give it back to you if you buy your own ladder. This would be a way of thanking him for lending you the ladder. I really can't do the same thing with my friend, because his parents have died (at the ages of 95 and 99) and that house is sold, and he's separated from his wife and not living in that house. He keeps his ladder in a semi-public building that has another ladder just as long.

**Almost all of the townhouses that I can see have a collar on each chimney, but one or two in addition to one of mine don't. I went 22 years just using a lot of black caulk, but having the collar too is better. I bought a universal one for about 10 or 20 dollars and trimmed it to fit.

Once I knocked the ladder over, and had to jump down, avoiding the closet shelf as best I could, and the clothes rod, and everything on the floor of the closet** including the ladder which looked dangerous. I didn't get hurt, but after that, I installed a phone in the attic and promised myself I would leave the front door unlocked when I went up there. Ooo, I should put the phone numbers of my neighbors up there too.

**(wide and shallow with folding doors)

[mm]

Wow.

A guy I worked with, a rugged guy in his late 40's or early 50's, fell

1 1/2 stories off his split level house. His wife was doing dishes at the sink, looking out the window, and saw him fly by. He was lucky that he only broke his leg, but unlucky that his leg wouldn't heal. He was on crutches for 6 months, a year, and still was when I changed jobs. Every night he would plug himself in to some electromagnetic radiation thing that promoted healing in most people (who didn't just heal by themselves), but for him it was verrrrry slow.

[RockyCJC]

The Little Giant is the best ladder for people who are that worried about climbing but still want to do things themselves. I bought model

26 but kind of wish I bought model 22. This thing feels really stable. I would recommend purchasing the leg leveleler to go with it. It also comes with a ladder stabalizer if you want to get it.

[bobjones]

Smaller people maybe.

[bobjones]

I should add that the Little Giant is FAR more versatile. I like that aspect. Jaws ladders are useless indoors. Big, heavy and limited.

[Al Bundy]

mm wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Classic skit used on Married With Children with the patio door. Always funny as hell in that context.

[mm]

I think you not only feel that way, you DO have something to hold onto.

I think you not only have a sense of security, you actually do have more security when the ladder extends well above the roof line.

I mention this because in the last few months quite a few politicians and administrators have talked just the way you did here, except from a different perspective.

I heard more than one person on the radio saying that their goal, or the goal of the agency or part of an agency they administer, or the program they were voting for, that the goal was to give Americans a sense of security. They didn't say that they were improving our actual security, only our sense of security. It was very depressing**. You are not depressing, because you're talking about your own security or sense of it, not mine, and because you're evaluating, not discussing your goal.

**Depressing partly because of the way they talk, and partly because there are so many areas where security could be improved, ship cargo, for just one example.

So retrospectively you're downplaying how much benefit the tall ladder gives you; and that's probably a good thing, because you're recommending a tall ladder to others, but you don't want to promise to them, or even claim for yourself, more than you're sure of. You're not a liar.

But these politicians and administrators, whose job is to increase our actual security, not just our sense of it, have, if you accept what they say, downgraded their goals to increasing only our sense of security.

Try to roll when you fall.

IMO, that's not just about feeling better either. If the helper has his feet planted right at the base of the ladder and is leaning his weight on the ladder to keep it in place, you are safer.

[Oren]

I'm not really planning on falling, because landing on my head makes it hard to roll. Paratroopers are taught to roll when they land. This is a good point.

I help a friend with work now and then. He knows I hate ladder work, but we were putting up molding today on 16 ' ceilings.

His "policy" is that "if you fall, you are fired before you hit the ground (grin)" .

-- Oren

"Well, it doesn't happen all the time, but when it happens, it happens constantly."

[mm]

Some people screw in a big eyebolt and tie the ladder to it as soon as they get to the top.