Nobody Goes Up Until One Man Says Go

The problem in one breath

The trucks roll in at seven, the ladder goes against the eave, and somebody is walking the ridge before anyone looked at the ladder feet, the deck, or the anchor. Most mornings that costs you nothing. The morning it costs you something, it costs you the company.

Why it happens

The check isn't anybody's job, so it doesn't happen. Safety gets sixty seconds after a scare, then the schedule takes over, and no foreman wants to be the man holding a tear-off on the ground over frost. So five men each figure one of the other four looked.

Add up one fall. You're short a man, the job stops with the roof open, and another crew comes off paying work to close it in. Then a claim lands that can follow your insurance for years — how far and how hard is your carrier's business, and the comp bill (Module 11, Play 3) is where you go ask.

The play

Call it the before-you-climb check. Same order, every job, before the first boot leaves the ladder.

1. One man runs it, and he owns the words "not yet." The foreman. Write his name on it. He can hold the crew on the ground, and nobody overrules him from the office — not you, not the homeowner. Any man can call a stop; only he calls the go.
2. Set the ladder like somebody's going to check it. Where a portable ladder is how men get onto the roof, its side rails have to reach at least 3 feet above the edge they climb onto. Too short? Tie the top to a rigid support that won't flex and give them a grabrail. Where traffic could clip it — driveway, doorway, walkway — secure it or barricade it.
3. Walk what the weather left you. Dew, frost, rain overnight, ice under a tarp. Soft decking, rot at a chimney, a skylight nobody flagged. The roof you bid in the afternoon is a different roof at 7 a.m.
4. Set the edge before the first bundle goes up. Six feet up with an open edge, a man gets protected. Under the federal construction rule that means guardrails, a safety net, or a personal fall arrest system. On a steep roof it's those three only, and guardrails there need toeboards. Some states run their own approved program — at least as effective as the federal one, not always identical, and it can be stricter on the height, the ladder and the gear. Call your state's office and get yours in writing.
5. Put hands on the gear cold, before it's needed. The anchor a man ties to stands on its own — not the point holding up a platform — and holds at least 5,000 pounds for each man tied to it. Rig it so no man free falls more than 6 feet and can't hit a lower level. Our own rule on top of that: any harness or lanyard cut, frayed, or already in a fall is out of the truck today. Hard hats where something can come down on a head.
6. Nobody works up top untrained, and it's on paper. Every man who might be near a fall hazard gets trained by a competent person on your hazards and your gear, and you keep a written certification record: his name, the training dates, and the signature of whoever trained him or your own. A tailgate talk nobody wrote down doesn't count.

Do this this week

Print the card, tape it inside the foreman's truck door, and run the check yourself on tomorrow's first job — out loud, front to back, crew standing there. Run it once so they hear what "not yet" sounds like from the man who signs the checks.

The tool

One card, taped inside the truck door. The foreman reads it out loud with the crew standing there — read silently, it turns into ticked boxes nobody looked at. Anything that doesn't pass goes on the NOT YET line with a time beside it, and nobody climbs until that line is clear.

BEFORE YOU CLIMB — nobody goes up until the foreman says GO

Job / address: ____________________  Date: ______  Time: ______
Who ran it: ________________________

THE LADDER
  [ ] Rails 3 ft or more above the roof edge, or top tied to a
      rigid support that won't flex, plus a grabrail
  [ ] Feet on solid ground, not on mud, plywood or a bundle
  [ ] Secured or barricaded if traffic can clip it
  [ ] Nothing carried up that costs a man his balance

THE DECK
  [ ] Frost, dew, rain, ice under the tarp — walked, not guessed
  [ ] Soft spots, rot, holes, skylights marked
  [ ] Power lines and the drop zone called out

THE EDGE AND THE GEAR
  [ ] Fall protection set before the first bundle goes up
  [ ] Anchor stands on its own — 5,000 lb for each man tied on
  [ ] Harness and lanyard: no cuts, no frays, nothing that has
      already caught a fall
  [ ] Rigged so no man free falls more than 6 ft, and can't hit
      a lower level
  [ ] Hard hats on where anything can come down

THE MEN
  [ ] Everybody going up is trained, on paper, signed
  [ ] New man paired with a name, not left to figure it out

Any man can call a STOP. Only the foreman calls GO.
NOT YET: ______________________________  Fixed at: ______

A Spanish version of this card lives on the Spanish cards page — same card, plain jobsite Spanish.

If your crew is 1099

You can't run a sub's men like they're yours — but you pick whose company works your job. Put it in the subcontract: he runs his own before-you-climb check, brings his own anchors and harnesses, and your foreman can shut your site down if he doesn't. Get the paper up front (the certificate log, Module 11, Play 5). And a truly self-employed contractor with no employees isn't covered by the OSH Act — no help to you, because the OSHA construction rules still reach you when your own men work next to a hazard his work created.

One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it's not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It's your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.