I keep saying the reason I don’t have a safety line for my roof work on FRHT is that there’s no intelligent place to anchor it that gives me both decent protection and mobility. Today I figured out a way to get both! I strung some plastic-coated steel cable along the middle of the roof, from eave to eave. This has minimal stretch and allows me to have a short leash such that if I were to fall off of ANY of the four sides, I won’t hit the ground AND I can access the whole roof with a single click-in. Nifty, eh? And the anchor points, which are stainless steel, can stay there forever. I will take the line down (leaving the eye bolts) when I’m not working on the roof.
A safety line is nothing without a tether and a harness. The tether is 6′ long. There’s a little more than 4′ of roof from the line to either high or low edge – so that’s 2′ of dangle, plus maybe another foot of slack. So even on the low edge, 11 ft from the ground, my tether’s end is no more than 3ft off the edge, 8ft from the ground. The harness’s anchor is mid back – so maybe 5′ from there to the ground. So the thing stops me about 3 feet from the street. That’s fine. I don’t care if it stops me 6 inches from the street. The point is it stops me, keep me upright, and prevents a bit of a bloody mess. The eaves or the high edge have me dangle higher. In all cases, at least a few feet from the ground, upright, and able to call for a helper to bring a ladder for me to climb up a little to disconnect my line.
I know it’s a bit late to the party, but in my defense, I didn’t think of this solution until just today. It’s simple, elegant, and I’m pretty sure it will work. I definitely feel much safer up there now and do not fear the remaining roof work.