Safety or efficiency?
Tuesday
Watching the renovation underway on the house next door is an interesting study of people, materials and techniques.
A couple of days ago the crew worked in pairs. One straddled the peak and held on to a rope while his partner hung at the end in a safety harness. They had thick foam pads, possibly to protect them from the heat of the roof.
While I'm happy to see safety precautions taken, it's hard to imagine that you can make the economics work when you have six men basically doing the work of three. I later heard that this crew had never worked on such a high peaked roof before. Funny, they work for "High Peak Roofing."
Thursday
A new crew is on the job, using the more familiar technique of nailing in place "roof jack" to hold a wood plank scaffold.
There were three guys in this crew, with two usually on the roof and the third cutting material to size on the ground and bringing it up the ladder.
These guys seemed pretty comfortable with what they were doing, in this case attaching sheets of 4" foam insulation to the surface then covering it with plywood.
