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Choosing Roofing Material? - Don't Overlook the Safety Factor

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Tangeer Mehedi

If you choose a roofing material, you have come to the right place. One of the most important but often overlooked considerations is the safety factor.


Let me tell you a true story that shows how one type of roofing material is more dangerous than another.


A few years ago I worked for a large commercial roofing contractor in Fort Myers, Florida. One of our projects was a 24-story skyscraper on Marco Island. The roofing material we installed was metal standing seam roofing panels.


The project was going well until one morning when a young roofer stepped on one of the sheet metal panels, which was still a little wet with dew. In a split second, he slipped, fell, and slid off the roof. Check out here more about this or similar articles.


It could have been the last mistake he ever made, but he was lucky to have an astute roofer named Rick Bluschevitz on hand. Rick had insisted that all men wear seat belts, although they were reluctant to do so.


The young man fell just meters before the rope and harness did their job and saved his life. The rest of the crew pulled him back onto the roof. He was obviously quite shaken, but he was fine.


So this story had a happy ending, but a lot of stories like that don't have that. And the type of roofing material can play a big role in such accidents.


Some types of roofing materials, like the metal sheets in this story, are dangerous even when dry. And they got wet in a particularly insidious way.


Other types of roofing material are relatively safe to walk on, wet or dry. Walking on asphalt shingles, for example, is like walking on sandpaper.


My point is that some types of roofing materials are inherently more dangerous than others. And either you or the workers you hire will occasionally need to climb onto your roof. You don't have to endanger life and limb.


Also, remember that roofers charge high prices for dangerous roof conditions. You can save a lot of money by choosing a relatively safe roofing material.

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