THROOP'S ROOF and OSHA RULES
		     by David S. Lawyer

Nine years ago I wrote about the roof and said we had minor problems.
I was over optimistic and naive.  While the existing steep roof may
last another 10 years of so, we will have major problems if: 1. We
don't have the funds to replace it.  2. We don't insist on the
highest quality workmanship and inspect the work as it progresses.

In a word, "rotten" describes our present roof, both physically and
metaphorically.  I've recently used almost 2000 nails to nail back
many loose shingles which had moved (or were torn or missing).  The
roof shingles themselves are in good shape, but unfortunately, they
were not attached properly to the roof.  Many of the wood boards
underneath the shingles have rotted from dampness due to leaks in the
past.  They just don't hold nails.  About a third of the nails I drove
into the roof were so loose (due to rotten wood underneath) that I
could pull them out with my fingernails.  For a steep roof in a high
wind, such nails just don't hold the shingles on.

Well, if a nail drove in very loose, then I would try another nail
about a couple inches away.  Often it was also rotten there too.  In
some cases, the nail would hit metal which may have been placed on
parts of the roof to cover missing wood boards (due to rot).  All this
is frustrating and no fun at all.  I think of the neglect in the past,
both by church members and inferior work by contractors that has
resulted in this sorry state of affairs.

When the wind was blowing hard recently at nite, I shone a spotlight
on the roof and was amazed to see shingles flapping upward like flags
blowing in the breeze.  A number of shingles were found which had
blown off onto the lawn and others into the street.  The shingles
overlap, so if one is lifted up by the wind it may lift up a couple of
other singles leading to a chain reaction with a large number of
shingles blown off the roof.  This has happened in the past.

Some previous repairs by contractors have used just ordinary nails
with small heads instead of roofing nails with large heads.  Many of
these "wrong" nails have failed.  In all, I expect that in the next
windstorm, still more shingles will move or come off.

It's a real problem to find anyone to work on the roof.  This is
because OSHA has ridiculously high safety requirements for our
situation.  It seems that OSHA rules were just not intended for a roof
as steep as ours but our roof is still subject to them. The rules talk
about using a lifeline rope to stop one in free fall.  But our roof is
so steep that there is always tension on the rope and thus there can't
be any free fall.  Such a lifeline rope is supposed to be tied to an
anchor point that can support at least 5000 pounds since when a person
in free-fall is stopped from falling further by a rope, there is quite
a jerk on the rope with forces which may exceed 1000 pounds.  But
since there isn't any free-fall here, an anchor only needs to support
ones weight (and not even that since most of ones weight is supported
by the roof surface).  Thus an anchor point that could take, say, 1000
pounds should be safe for most people.  I've used my car parked in the
parking lot as an anchor point.

Luckily, OSHA requirements apply only to paid workers and not to
volunteers.  But when the time comes to get a new roof, then the
onerous OSHA requirements will increase our costs.  When one thinks
about all the different conditions on various steep roofs, it just
isn't right to establish such dogmatic "one size fits all" rules like
OSHA has done.  OSHA rules allows someone to go on the roof to inspect
it without any protection at all, yet if one tried to do that on our
roof, they would likely be killed.  So OSHA rules applied to our roof
are at the same time both far to strict and far too lax.  Instead of
specific rules, they could specify, for example, that if the chances of
being killed (or permanently disabled) are over one in a million per
day, then such workers should get extra compensation, depending on the
risk.  The OSHA roofing rules are but one example of government rules
that are inept, but having no rules wouldn't be good either.