I had two site visits yesterday. I went to both roofs, which were accessed through ladders. Classic, old style roof ladders like this random example I found:
OSHA regulations basically outlawed this type of ladder in 1991. Those 1/4″ round rungs are not “corrugated, knurled, dimpled, coated with skid-resistant material, or otherwise treated to minimize slipping” and yesterday’s rain made that a real issue. And New York City requires that new ladders have rungs that are a minimum of 3/4″ in diameter.
The regulations apply only to new ladders for several good reasons, including cost and the difficulty of policing a theoretical effort to have the regs apply retroactively to existing ladders. That said, it is tiring, after so many years of site visits, to keep climbing bad ladders. Fortunately, the internet has provided the proper response to me saying this: here.
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