quote:

My neighbor has a huge pine tree that dumps tons of needles everywhere this time of year, and they fall on my roof and hold water, so I have to go up and rake them off so the shingles don't rot.

The branches from this tree overhang your roof? Cut them sumbitches off!

Shortly after we bought our house, I had to get on the roof. The ladder allows me to climb up without touching the shingles with my hands. But coming down, I have to very carefully brace my hands on the shingles to step onto the ladder. And by very carefully, I mean my hands are in contact with the shingles for 5-10 seconds.

Well, it's FL, and it was summer, around mid day. So those shingles had to have been 140 degrees. I could not touch them, and I did not have my gloves like normal. I had to stomp around on the roof until my wife came out and grabbed gloves for me.

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Originally posted by egregore:
The branches from this tree overhang your roof? Cut them sumbitches off!

Any branches that I could reach I have cut off. There is very little that actually overhangs my property line at this point, but the tree is over 60 feet tall, so when it sheds, needles go EVERYWHERE. It's a white pine or something like that, so the needles are 4-5 inches long, and they kinda float on the wind and cover a wide area. It's a horrible tree and I hate it. My only prayer is that when it finally decides to fall it goes east and crushes the fence, not my house.

I fell off a ladder and my ankle got caught between two of the rungs. My mind flashed to a horrible snap with bones sticking through the skin, but luckily I just twisted it a bit and hit the wooden deck before it snapped in two...

I ended up laying on the deck with my one leg up in the air and ankle trapped in the ladder. Wife wasn't happy at all.

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Originally posted by 92fstech:
Well, if you make sure your kids or wife are around when you do it, at least there will be someone there to laugh at you when it all goes wrong.

Yeah, I had my wife out in the yard yesterday and it was a good thing because I just about knocked the ladder over with the hose. The way it was leaning against the edge of the gutter would not have been encouraging for an attempt by myself.

Today, I had to go back up because I ran out of moss spray yesterday. My wife was inside, doing the work-from-home thing. I told her I'd let her know when I was finished so I could have her hold the ladder, and please pay attention to her phone. "Ok." When I was done, I had the sprayer and hose in one hand and my phone in the other and didn't want to spend a ton of time with no free hands on a pitched roof, so I texted her. That didn't work, so I started knocking on the roof. No response. By the time I got her to answer the phone and come outside, my patience was just about shot.

I did tell my son that if he saw a safety orange streak hit the ground outside the window with a thud, it was me, and he should immediately go tell Mom to call 911. He nodded, said "ok" like it was the most normal thing in the world, and turned his attention back to "virtual class."

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Originally posted by 92fstech:
My wife and kids laughed really hard when I told them...then said they wanted to see me do it again. I'm kinda afraid at this point that they'll knock the ladder down on purpose next time just to watch me climb down via the shed... :P

While I was up there today, I was thinking about what I'd have to do to get down without dying or getting seriously injured should things come to that. I think my only option would be to jump into the fir tree next to the house and hope my nuts don't get ripped off in the process.

We've all been there brother. Or will be soon enough:-)

Contractor just did some work for us on our 3rd story. Too high for me. He used something I'd not seen before to connect his ladder to the gutter.



Took him maybe 3 seconds to put it in. I don't know anything about it other than he whipped it out quick and was pretty high off the deck.

I knew of these things below but he didn't have one of them.

I had a friend shatter his ankle falling off a ladder. Two years later and he is still not walking normally.

92fstech:

I've done that four times... and I go on roofs for a living.... actually the first time I just jumped... but I was about 25 then.... second time the homeowner put the ladder back up for me.

It’s amazing any of us lived to adulthood.

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Originally posted by sjtill:
It’s amazing any of us lived to adulthood.

Yes. We climbed trees, climbed on top roofs, played in the streets, rode bicycles in heavy city traffic, played tackle football without helmets, rode motorcycles or bicycles without helmets, drank water from a garden hose and (Gasp) even as teens, went off to war.

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Originally posted by GWbiker:

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
It’s amazing any of us lived to adulthood.

Yes. We climbed trees, climbed on top roofs, played in the streets, rode bicycles in heavy city traffic, played tackle football without helmets, rode motorcycles or bicycles without helmets, drank water from a garden hose and (Gasp) even as teens, went off to war.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ AMEN Brother in more ways than one. ............. drill sgt.

SigForum Roof Ninjas don't need no stinkin ladder tie-offs