One challenge faced by commercial roofing contractors is that of providing appropriate fall protection for their workers.
Commercial roof contracting is a tough, competitive, demanding enterprise. It is complicated by constantly changing job conditions and specifications. Labor is scarce and expensive. One challenge follows another, and just when you think you have a few of them figured out, two more pop up.
One challenge faced by commercial roofing contractors is that of providing appropriate fall protection for their workers. In recent years, local regulations and OSHA standards have actually been greeted by thinking roofing contractors with genuine concern for their application. In other words, we seem to be moving, as a culture, from considering fall protection schemes as a nuisance to a real necessity. Roofing contractors even see fall protection as adding value to their business as a contractor and employer.
All commercial roofing contractors have not reached this plateau, but many have. For those of you who now consider fall protection a valid component of your roofing jobs, why not consider taking it to the next level? Over the past several years, Roofing Contractor has reported on many examples of this concept, so understand that this is merely an observation of something that already exists in the world of commercial roofing.
The “next level” in fall protection involves two elements.
First, bring the building owner into the picture. In many cases, we should add permanent fall protection schemes into new construction or retrofit situations. Specifiers should add permanent fall protection systems to buildings where maintenance will be performed by personnel on the roof through the normal course of a building’s life. Where the original plans do not call for this, the contractor has an open-field opportunity to sell it as an extra on the roofing contract.