Ronstar
Moderator Emeritus
Nice view around your place.
Really funny to see you stop and tie your shoelace
Thanks. - A roof is not a good place to be running around with shoes untied.
Nice view around your place.
Really funny to see you stop and tie your shoelace
I'd take your relatives' experiences as the warning - and I'm sure they thought they were careful and attentive.
everything in life has risks, but ladders seem to have more of them that they are worth.
...
Our neighbor is always up his trees, trimming, or on his 2 story roof doing something.
Makes me nervous to see him, but he is a retired fireman, so I guess he knows what he is doing.
At 69 yo I’m done with extension ladders I have to get off/on at the top. I still change light bulbs and smoke detector batteries from a ladder in double sided stepladder config (we have 12 foot ceilings), but I’m not going on our roof ever again. Getting off and on the ladder to the roof is the scariest part.I'd take your relatives' experiences as the warning - and I'm sure they thought they were careful and attentive.
The value/risk equation is too great for me or DH. I didn't retire early only to fall off a ladder and wreck myself. Sure, everything in life has risks, but ladders seem to have more of them that they are worth.
Step ladder, to reach the first story trim for lights. Anything higher? Hire someone.
Speaking of.... another (horrible) anecdote about ladders.
Super Bowl Sunday
*the rest of the story includes the ambulance
A happier Ladder story involves my Grandfather....
One fall day as I pass their house on my way home.... I spot my 84 YO GF kneeling at the edge of his roof cleaning out gutters.... I bow up in the road and go back.... Get him to stop and I finish up... Told him it was a great idea and borrow his ladder to do ours... (NO... I took his ladder away) After that any time he needed to do something, he would call to BORROW his ladder, and I would go take care of whatever and give an excuse to bring the ladder back home .... Problem solved.......
UNTIL..... a few years later... believe he was 88.... I drive by to again find him on the roof.... I stop, grandma is having a fit... He got tired of BORROWING his own ladder, and went and bought a new one....
I still have both...
I worked with a guy who fell off his 1 story roof getting back on a ladder after clearing snow off his roof, and landed in his driveway - serious spinal injury. With no one there to help him (cell phones weren’t a thing yet), he crawled back in his house in dark, snow and cold, and by his account probably did most of the spinal damage from moving after the fall.
My rule: anything that requires me to get on anything more than a step ladder and more than 3 feet off the ground, I hire someone else to do, or buy some tool will a looong pole that allows me to perform the task .
Last year I did volunteer duty that included painting a room with very high ceilings, I told the folks I was happy to paint anything as long as my feet did not leave the ground. They got a couple of fearless 20-something year olds to go up the ladders to deal with anything else .
Yes, ladder climbing was one of the first things to give me pause in my 50-ies. I'll still do some of it but definitely more selective these days.
Nor should she.
Three little words that rank very close in importance to another famous three little words...
Let me guess..."Rest in Peace"?
Good to know. Next time I change ceiling fans, all I’ll need are some cinder blocks. One can learn a lot on this forum.I think at this point I have to relate my ladder story.
In a previous house, I wanted to install a ceiling fan in the living room. This was a bit of an unusual house and the ceiling was very high. I was about 60 at the time.
I had a 12 foot stepladder, but it wasn't nearly tall enough, so I took a bunch of cinder blocks and stacked four of them under each of the feet of the ladder. Then of course I needed another smaller ladder to get up high enough to step onto the big ladder. My poor dear wife was absolutely beside herself and begged me to come to my senses, but I decided it was OK.
Carried the fan up and got it installed, and the whole time she was holding the phone preparing to dial 911. Nothing happened, and it was never a problem in my mind, but she has never let me forget about it. Nor should she.
Good to know. Next time I change ceiling fans, all I’ll need are some cinder blocks. One can learn a lot on this forum.
You can make the stacked cinder blocks safer if you mortar them together.