Posted By Ross Stirton
Has anybody come across anything innovative and appropriate for short duration (4 hour) minor repairs to domestic roofs (pitched and flat). All parts of the roof require to be accessed and job (allegedly) won't be commercially viable if scaffold/cherry picker is only option.

Thanks in anticipation.

Ross

Posted By CFT
I'd have to generally agree with those comments; if you can't go down that route where are you going to anchor to from an arrest point of view? Restraint is going to be of little use to you in this type of environment due to the limited movement.

Might it be a consideration for a small boom type MEWP to be leased by the company if your order books are seeing more of this type of work?

Sorry can't help more.

CFT

Posted By Paul Darby
It is a very good question, as the time and effort taken to assemble and place fall prevention can be taken into account for short duration works.

I had a similar situation on a flat roof at my site where the work was to access the roof, tighten 1 bolt on an aerial and leave the roof. In all about 4 minutes work.

Is it reasonable to spend 2 hours fitting fall prevention, and 2 hours removing it... no, clearly not.

For your info, in this situation our RA said that the engineer was to access the roof via a secured ladder. Walk dierctly to the aerial (which kept him at least 5 metres from any edge) then when at the aerial, secure his harness to the aerial base (which was substantial), complete the work, and head back to the ladder.

I believe for a 4 minute job, that was sufficient and reasonable. The task was assessed, the engineer was trained what to do, he was supervised and used the fall restraint equipment.

I believe we had contolled the risk to him as far as reasonbly practictable.

To answer your original question, there are some weighted anchor systems that can be assembled on a flat roof, then clipped onto. However I have seen some very questionable practices when getting the anchor system onto the roof in the first place!

Posted By Arran Linton - Smith
From a CDM-C point of view, this problem has haunted me for some time, however this problem is more challenging, as it common for modern homes to be built with at lease three floors.

Unfortunately, as we are aware the average roofer out of Yellow Pages does not have the resources to undertake this work safely in line with the Work at Height Regulations, but at the same time meeting their market expectation in terms of cost.

The only solution I can think of is either to sell new houses with service agreements for their roofs, which would mean that they would not be sold as freehold properties or to establish a specific roof-maintenance insurance scheme such as the type currently being sold by British Gas for domestic heating. I suspect the likely cost of this insurance would be in the region of £300 per annum. Ouch!

Posted By peter gotch
Up here in Scotland, we have quite a lot of domestic pitched roofs which have been fitted with ridge or slope mounted anchorage points either as part of new build design, during reroofing, or retrofitted.

You can't easily, safely get a roof ladder onto a three or four storey building!

Regards, Peter

Posted By Andy Brazier
Whilst the cost, time and effort for introducing protection or mitigation the most important consideration is whether the protection or mitigation introduces a risk. Certainly erecting and dismantling scaffolding has a risk, as does use of a MEWP. Even providing anchors for ropes can change perceptions potentially encouraging higher risk behaviours.

This is what ALARP is all about. You need to demonstrate that you have considered all options available to reduce risks and then explain why you chose the ones you did and rejected the others. It is better if that explanation is risk based rather than saying additional controls are expensive.

Posted By Paul Darby
Ali, thanks for your view, it fits with my thoughts, and our general approach to WAH. Paul