Had to delay a job today.

[SeaCat]

This morning I set up my days plans for the jobs I was going to do. Only two jobs were on the list. The first was to redo one corner of the roof. I was going to remove the sheet metal screws I had put in it last year and replace them with rivets. The second job was to crawl under the trailer and replace the flex ducting from the A/C Compressor to the in trailer ducting. Neither of these jobs are fun but they needed to be done.

Now let me give you a hint about the weather. It was clear, it was calm. The sun was shining and the thermometer was climbing. By 0900 we were reading 90°F in the shade.

Up the ladder I went. I get the work done and I'm ready to climb back down when the ladder shifts. This isn't good. I drop the drill and the riveter and try to grab the edge of the roof without luck. My hands are sweat slicked as is the rest of me. I'm fifteen feet up. I fall back into the Palm Tree behind me to keep from falling. Now that was a mistake. If I had been thinking about it I would have let the ladder tip more and then done a PLF.

Think about raking your back across a bunch of Steel Wire Brushes. That's what it felt like. (Not to mention what it ended up looking like.) I push off from the tree and climb back down to have my wife clean out my back with my usual treatment. (That stung a bit.)

I didn't climb under the trailer to do the A/C Ducting. As much as I wanted to get it done today it can wait. No need to invite infection.

Cat

 

[TE999]

Holy crap! I bet that smarts. Get yourself a pair of ladder mittens. They prevent the top end of the ladder from sliding on any surface short of plate glass.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Holy crap! I bet that smarts. Get yourself a pair of ladder mittens. They prevent the top end of the ladder from sliding on any surface short of plate glass.

Or use a step ladder.

 

[cantdog]

The mittens are a good notion.

In the fire service I used ladders constantly for years. The only time I had to ride one to the ground as we both fell, the culprit was ice. Ice at the eaves and ice at the foot. It's amazing how much thought you can fit into the brief split-seconds between the feeling the ladder's going and the impacts. I was handicapped by the Scott pack, but I managed to keep from getting hurt too much, and carried on working on the building.

Stay on top of the cuts and infection.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I did sheet metal work out of LU57TAMPA for several years.

Unless you can wire a ladder to stay in place, it will move on you. And a trailer affords no places to wire ladders down. So you need a helper to hold the ladder in place when you ascend or descend.

I think the most dangerous thing I ever did was let them tie a rope around my waist and lower me over the side of the lounge-boxes at Tampa Stadium. It was 150 feet above the ground and we were installing vent grills for the elevator shaft. This was 1975.