Foam outside of roof decking – Fall Arrest Anchor?
Hello,
I need to get on our 8-in-12 roof in order to do a lot of painting on our newly-constructed dormer. We just had our house re-roofed with exterior foam board insulation (it is a 1 1/2 story cape style house, so we made a “hot roof”). On the main section of our roof, we have 2 inch thick foam board and on the dormer it is super-insulated with 10 or 12 inches of foam board.
I’m not afraid of heights, but we have four young children and I really want to play it safe. I’m going to buy a fall arrest harness kit, but I can’t figure out how I should anchor it to the roof. Not only would the nails that come with the anchor plate be too short (they’d barely get through the 2-inches of foam), but I’m not even sure how I’d find the rafters (since I can’t do it by banging and listening for the sound).
It’s impractical, I think, to try to attach an anchor to our super-insulated 1-in-12 TPO covered dormer, but I really do need to be able to attach my anchor through the 2-inches of foam on the ridge of our main roof.
Any advise would be MUCH appreciated!
Replies
Maybe there's other options.
Why do you have to anchor your fall arrest to the roof? How about going over the ridge and anchoring to the bumper of your F-150 parked in the back yard? Just don't send your helper out in the truck to get lunch while you're painting.
Thanks! Yes, if by F-150 you mean minivan-full-of-kid-carseats, I thought of that, but thought that all the friction of the rope on the ridge wouldn't be the greatest idea, but maybe I'm being overly cautious.
It's good to be cautious
Here's how you take care of it:
Take an 8' section of old garden hose, slit it length wise, then center it over the protion of rope tat hits the ridge of the roof. That will take care of any friction/wearing issues as have as you move around the roof.
Another option:
If you're worried about a ridge cap getting worn or crushed than block either side parrellel to the ridge with 4' sections of 4" diameter PVC. Strap the two pieces on either side together (and at each end of the 4' lenght) with rope (drill a hole through center of each piece and tie the knot) The piping only need to be about 2"- 4" down from the ridge on either side; or just enough down where it keeps the PVC tie rope off the ridge. Then sling your safety rope over that. It will slide easily. Actually, if you use PVC standoffs, it is slick enough that it won't typically wear on your safety rope.
I think I would cobble together some boards in an inverted V to fit on the ridge, then run ropes from all four corners down to solid anchorage.
That's a creative idea! Thanks for your help!
Tie the kids on the other end of your rope. Its a win for you and for your wife. Seriously though don't tie off to a vehicle. People have been pulled of the roof doing that. ( I guess you could tack the battery cable off and that would be okay.)
Tie off to a deck or anything else permanently afixed. You could also run an aircraft cable between the two gables with a little blocking to hold it off the gable and above the ridge the beauty of this is it could stay in place and your safety rope would be able to slide anywhere along the roof. The cable would have some amount of strecth to it so you wouldn't want too much slack in your safety rope. The wouldn't also work if you intend to use the safety rope to pull your self up and down etc due to the stretch in the cable.