Loading a Roof

Loading a roof can be easy or hard.

There are many ways to get your roofing materials on the roof. A good ladder and a strong back are used many times but that can be the hard way especially if it is a high roof or a very large building. Nowadays if you order from a roofing supply company, you can choose to pay for rooftop delivery. The supplier will bring out your materials and load it up on the roof if you have good access. If you don’t clarify ROOFTOP you will most likely have the materials delivered to the driveway or the street in front of your building. With a rooftop delivery, you get two or three men that will load the roof in a short period of time. Some roofing suppliers will limit this service up to 7:12 pitch and ask that you provide the manpower to load on steeper roofs. They will be happy to lift the roofing materials to the eaves using a conveyor truck. This type of delivery truck can reach up to 45 feet.

For many years I used scissor lift bed trucks to hoist my materials up to the roof eaves. Guard rails must be used to protect from employees falling off. The other options are forklifts from a small Clark to a long reach Caterpillar all will cost you a little extra but well work the money.

Here is an example of a tool that works well when others are not feasible. It is a ladder hoist, I call them laddervators. It is a specially designed ladder with a pulley system with a cable attached to a spool that is spun by a 3-horse power motor. The other end of the cable attaches and lifts a small platform up the side rails of the ladder. It takes two men to work one to load the platform and one to engage the grip hoist, lifting the roofing materials up to the second man. I have owned two of these units and them very handy to have for “that special job”. We would use them any time during the year when other methods wouldn’t work. Using a ladder hoist is very dangerous and operators must be trained in proper assembly and operation. I have had a good scar on my face from a falling piece of edge metal that didn’t like the bouncy ride down and caught me before I could move out of the way.

         

The center photo has an old website URL on back of Tavio’s shirt. I once owned it but dropped it many years ago. At the time of publishing this blog I noticed it now has been picked up by a contractor from New Jersey and is once again in use. They are no affiliation with AskARoofer.com

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