Roofing Work News Roundup – April, 2017
Here at D-marc we’re in the business of making work at height, namely roofing work, safer with our innovative rooftop barrier solutions. As such, we keep a close eye on the news for stories about roof work and working at height in general so that we can provide our readers with useful and relevant information that will keep them up to date with what’s going on in our industry. Once a month, we’ll publish a roundup of the news that affects our sector in one easy place so that readers can get a quick overview of the most important happenings over the past month. If you have anything to add or know of any stories that you’d like us to cover, please don’t hesitate to let us know, either by email, on our Facebook Page or on our Twitter feed.
Our first news item concerns two roofing contractors who have been ordered to pay out £140,000 between them after Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was alerted to the fact that their workers were working on a roof with no edge protection and with fragile skylights that had not been covered to prevent falls through them. In one area, a skylight had been removed, leaving a gaping hole with no fall prevention measures in place. To make things worse, this work was being undertaken during snowy weather which added to the risks involved. Employees working below in the mill building were also deemed to be at risk from being hit by falling tools or debris. Despite the fact that no accident occurred, the hefty fines reflect the seriousness of not providing proper safety measures when working on roofs.
Good news for budding roofers as Redland, the UK’s first dedicated pitched roofing industry training centre launched a pioneering programme to support young roofing students. The programme provides a range of support items to colleges and training groups delivering technical training and is part of a wider strategy to upskill the industry.
An historic village church near Lutterworth was twice targeted by thieves over the Easter holidays. Copper and lead were stripped from the roof of the building, parts of which date back to the 1300s. A safe was also stolen from the building along with a number of baptism, marriage and burial registers and the metal pipes from the Victorian organ were stolen. A number of churches across Leicestershire have been targeted in recent months in similar incidents with the thieves selling the metal they steal for scrap.
In the category of “You Couldn’t Make it up if you Tried” comes a story about an American construction company that seems to be using social media and YouTube to garner a bit of attention. A YouTube video features the owner of Washington-based Roy Co. Roofing visiting a grocery store to buy a cake, supposedly as an apology gift for a disgruntled home owner. He asks the staff to add the following message to the cake in icing “Sorry that I accidentally removed your roof”! It’s not clear whether the video is a joke or whether somebody’s roof really was removed in error but the company’s Facebook page recently included the post “We recently had a complaint from a client about using bubble gum instead of nails . . . if you do not like our building methods, you can go shove a cactus in you’re a***.”