Yeah...we have some ridiculously steep roofs around here and moss? Official Washington State Plant. That being said, I insist on doing permanent anchors for anything steep or anything over 1 story where your feet need to hit the roof. We can argue about rinsing and mixes and what are the best pumps (1" AODD OBVIOUSLY!), but with safety, there IS no argument. First off, it IS the law. OSHA to be exact. If you get inspected and you don't have fall arrest gear, you will be fined...big. Second, it is just a really really good idea. Once you lose traction and go over or trip, even on a moderate pitch roof, chances are pretty good you are going over the edge and even if it is one story, it can still kill you. If you step on a shingle that is not nailed in and it slips out from under you (it WILL happen at some point and that is perhaps one of the scariest feelings there is), or you hit a particularly slippery patch of granules...or you get distracted and become unbalanced...you can go off the roof. Once you start to go over, at that point, Physics takes over and somebody is very likely to get badly hurt...or worse, Die. If it is just me up on a roof, then as the business owner, I can make the choice to be stupid, not have fall protection and risk the fine...though one look at my daughter always convinces me otherwise. But the minute you send an employee up there, the game changes. You have somebody else's life in your hands and that entails a degree of responsibility and liability. I had had an employee whose life was saved by his fall arrest equipment. He tripped on a hose on a moderate pitch two story. His fall arrest equipment hooked into a permanent safety anchor he had installed not 20 minutes before caught him before he went over the edge. He complained about using the harness and grumbled about my insistance before that incident. Afterwords, he never complained again.
From a BUSINESS and liability standpoint, God forbid an employee falls off a roof without proper fall protection and is seriously injured or dies. Should that happen, aside from being utterly devastated, you as the business owner would be liable and the fact they were on a roof without fall arrest equipment...or at the minimum a firmly set company safety policy which requires it...this means you lose in court. Either keep them off the roof, or use proper fall arrest. There really shouldn't be anything in-between. My policy is...1 story, use the pipe anchor or set an anchor. Two stories or higher and you need to put a foot on that roof...install permanent anchors. Period.
The last thing I EVER want to see is a story on one of these forums about somebody who dies for such a stupid reason as cleaning a freaking roof. Think about it guys.
