Ladder safety is key in outdoor chores
Published 3:30 pm Friday, June 12, 2020
Nailing It Down
By Dave Murnen and Pat Beaty
Summertime is the time for so many home maintenance projects, from cleaning your gutters and inspecting your roof to washing or painting your house.
While we’ve mentioned it in recent columns, it’s been awhile since we really concentrated on the importance of ladder safety. So here we go!
When working on ladders, you need not only the proper equipment, but also the right know-how.
Ladder stand-off is a must
Whatever chore that takes you up on an extension ladder — gutter cleaning, roof inspecting, house painting — it opens you up to one of the most common causes of severe fall trauma. People tend to lean out too far to one side to get that last little area without moving the ladder — but this can make the ladder slide sideways, and down you go.
But let’s start this discussion from the ground up.
Safety begins with solid, level ground for each of the ladder’s legs. Sometimes you have to modify the grade to create a safer platform. When it comes to safety, it’s usually better to dig into the ground and bury the long leg than to build up a tippy platform to support a shorter one.
Once the ground is solid, with even footing, test the ladder from the lower rungs and then all the way up. Your spouse and neighbors would think you were brilliant if you tied the ladder to the house, too.
An extension ladder leaning on a smooth gutter is one of the most common scenarios leading to DIY injuries and death. Our arms are too short to clean out gutters efficiently, which makes us lean out farther to the side than we should — and who’s prepared when the ladder slides down the gutter? So besides using a tool to extend our reach, there is one tool that can prevent ladder falls altogether if you place it correctly.
A ladder stand-off device is waiting for you at your local hardware store. It’s a great gift, and even that 4-year-old at the bottom of the ladder, who depends on you for everything, could easily attach this device to the top of daddy’s ladder before he bravely ascends.
It’s not just extension ladders that can cause injury, either. Step ladders, especially short ones with nothing to hold on to, are just as dangerous.
While three-legged ladders are safer than those with four legs, particularly on rough ground, each leg of any ladder must sit firmly on a hard surface. An adult helper holding on to the ladder is a good practice, and so is getting the next size ladder when you really need to get up onto the last two rungs. Standing on the top rung of the ladder is never a good idea — and most newer ladders say that right on them.
Want to borrow our tools?
Ladder stand-off attachments are one of the things that we loan out free of charge here at NeighborWorks of Grays Harbor.
Thanks to a generous donation by Cosmo Manufacturing in Cosmopolis, we have a very practical way of helping you with your DIY projects. Instead of investing in your own equipment, you can borrow from our painting and house-washing equipment.
In addition to ladder stand-off attachments, this includes tools such as pump sprayers and long-handled brushes, rollers and roller racks, caulk guns, putty knives, scrapers, wire brushes, drop cloths and buckets. (Sorry, but it does not include ladders, paint sprayers or power washers.)
If you would like to borrow some of these tools, simply e-mail Dave at dmurnen@aberdeen-nhs.com. We can make an appointment to meet at our Aberdeen office and — in a socially distanced way — get those tools to you.
Stay away from the mast
When working on overhead house projects, the ladder isn’t the only thing to be concerned with. The electrical mast on the roof of each house is not something to be toyed with.
Whether you are repairing or cleaning the roof, washing or painting your house, or even just doing some tree-trimming, be aware of that mast and the electrical wires it supports. And stay far away!
Just as you can call ahead for guidance before digging holes in the ground, you can seek aid before working near your home’s overhead electrical mast or before trimming or falling trees that could touch it. Call the Grays Harbor Public Utility District at 360-532-4220, and the service dispatcher will arrange to send a PUD crew to your home to determine the safest approach for wires that may be in the way.
Dave Murnen and Pat Beaty are construction specialists at NeighborWorks of Grays Harbor County, where Murnen is executive director. This is a nonprofit organization committed to creating safe and affordable housing for all residents of Grays Harbor County. For questions about home repair, renting, remodeling or buying, call 360-533-7828 or visit 710 E. Market St. in Aberdeen. Our office is fully ADA-compliant.
