A fall from a 2 story roof represents a high likelihood of serious injury or death. It shouldn’t be open for discussion with your son. Thank him for his good intentions and move on.
Hire a company to install gutter guards and be done with it.
I had my home reroofed a few months ago. The roofing company installed several of these along the roofline. My handyman is very pleased.
@China_Guy, you exerted far more control than I would have in the situation. Climbing around on roofs is dangerous for anyone, even more so for youngsters who are easily distracted. You were not the jerk.
Yeah, it nails/screws into the top crown of the roof. I’ve seen them in action. Ya got to get the thing there first to anchor it though. And you are unprotected at that time.
Unless you just throw a rope over the roof and anchor it on both sides. It can be a bit of a trick.
What I did recently was take a figure eight desender. And tie it to a light weight cord. It took a few tries but was able to throw that over the roof. Then tie the light weight cord to climbing rope and drag it over and anchored the climbing rope.
And I had two ascenders to anchor myself while I worked on the dish.
And another rope to bring up tools.
I learned one very, very important lesson - I’m too old for this shit. The thing is, there was no one else that would do it.
I did a bottom belay for my neighbor when he did his.
Our job as parents is to do our best to make sure our children are safe, despite others insisting they know better. You know what’s right here. Obviously their mother is tragically uninformed. Don’t allow yourself to be overruled when you know you’re right.
Thank goodness you’re there to keep a rational head on your shoulders, because Og in heaven, she is batshit insane if she thinks it’s safe.
Send her up there with no safety equipment and see how safe she thinks it is.
Think about it - if there’s an accident, would you be okay with having acquiesced to someone you knew was wrong?
Tragically, I know a local (Renton) man whose wife suffered severe, permanent brain damage falling off a 6ft ladder in their living room.
What happens when the other parent is also certain they are right?
As an example: Most of this message board is people arguing that they are right and most are certain they know better.
Thread title:
Venting: am I the jerk? Cleaning 30 foot high up gutters sans safety equipment
Is this really a question, ffs???
Yes.
Don’t allow yourself to be overruled when you know you’re right.
Your statement allows for infinite more situations than walking on the roof.
We’re not talking about those, are we?
We’re talking about protecting your children, erring on the side of not letting them work 30 feet high on the roof with no safety equipment. At some point, you have to go with the safest option.
Pros can do that. They aint no pros.
You are not a jerk.
I doubt it. Better would be to use a boom lift to install the anchor(s). We installed solar panels this year and had the building surrounded by scaffolding. Even then, they had to bring in a boom lift to install the anchors at the crest of the roof.
If the roof is flat, and it’s possible to get to the roof from the middle (interior stairs), then it’s possible to install anchors for working near the edge. Maybe. I know it used to be quite common to not have anchors on flat roofs because no one worried about falling off a flat roof. Unfortunately that’s not true.
Regarding the OP, gravity sucks. And gravity wins, every time. You’re not the jerk. If those same two 18 year old boys were doing the same activity for a reputable company, they would be given an official warning, if not fired outright, for unsafe behavior.
Can someone please explain to me what this means?
I have never worked on a steep roof.
To me “walking” involves 2 feet and thus two points of contact. What is the third?
A hand.
I’ve walked around a few roofs in my time, never with any sort of safety equipment. That ended when I reached the age of reason.
You were not jerky. I would have forbade him from stepping onto my roof, physically if necessary.
mmm
For me, the 3 points of contact when clearing the gutter of the 1st floor roof of leaves has been my butt and two hands. Never walked upright.
Gutter guy is coming to do a complete job including 2d story.
After getting an aluminum roof, blocks of snow slide more aggressively down it. And after the first really major snow storm, we lost must of our gutters.
That spring, i tried to hire a company to replace them. The guy who came out to scout the job said the job was too small for his company, but recommended a smaller outfit. He also asked me if I’d had trouble with water in the basement in the big rainstorm a week previously.
“No, the basement is pretty dry”, i said.
He recommended i not replace most of the gutters. So now we just have a short run over each door. It’s great. My husband can clear them from a ladder, standing with his feet less than 6 feet above the ground. And it’s only a few feet of gutter. This year it was hard because they were full of acorns that had sprouted and had intertwined roots. But most years it’s quick.
Consider if you need the gutters. Gutters are a huge nuisance.
I remember jumping off a flat roof into a cement pond, once was enough. Though we did like to just chill out sitting on the roof.
This thread has my great interest, as I have big trees over the house and the barn, and the leaves and stuff they shed need frequent removal. My roof is peaked but not very steep, and I go up a ladder from the deck (about an 8’ climb) with a leaf blower, get the leaves off the roof, and then blow out the gutters. At one end, the ridge is 25’ above the paved driveway, but the gutters are mostly about 10 or 15 feet high. I don’t like it, but have always regarded it as one of those things you just have to do, so be careful. I want gutter guards, but imagine all the leaves that accumulate on the roof itself will still need blowing off, and besides I have to spray moss killer regularly. I did replace boards by lying on the edge of the roof with my head and shoulders hanging over, which I absolutely hated, with a professional; but that was in my foolish youth, decades ago.
I’ve had both my roofs replaced by professionals, and seen plenty of professionals work on other roofs. I have never once seen anything I could recognize as safety equipment, such as ropes and harnesses. My understanding has always been that roof work sucks, and is one of the many reasons you should stay in school, etc etc. In fact, not two hours ago, somebody was just saying “if you are willing to work on roofs you will always have a job”, the implication being that there is more need than there are people willing to work up there.
So… how am I supposed to be doing this? Install anchors on the ridge and use rope and harness?
Both my roofs have a single ridge, and a rectangular outline, and the same slope on each side of the ridge, and other than a smallish skylight and a chimney there is nothing that deviates from the simple rectangular geometry. How do I keep a rope the right length, multiple anchors and running up and down to move the rope?
Based on what I’ve observed, the point of hiring professionals would be that they’d be the ones getting hurt or killed instead of me. And, I guess, they’re going to be younger and more nimble and would survive a fall better. I’m not aware that they’d perform the job any differently than I would have, though.
I wouldn’t say you are being a jerk, but maybe a little overboard. Unless you got a A-Frame cabin or something with a wicked steep pitch, walking around on the roof really isn’t that big of a deal. Between working on the swamp cooler damn near every week from spring to fall, installing and removing Christmas lights for the season, I’m on my roof almost as much as I’m on the couch. If I had gutters, I’d be up there even more. The ladder lives on the back porch from June to January, it gets used that much.
Not a big deal. More dangerous to drive the 20 miles to the store for food.
So … you have experience.
Experience matters.
So does the kind of risk-intolerance that may come with age.