Ladder Safety

Getting up on your roof to clean your solar panels can be a daunting task, but with some ladder safety tips getting up and down from your roof can go from precarious to a mundane task to cvan feel confident won’t let you down (pun intended)

Firstly you want to make sure you are setting up the ladder at the right angle against your house, generally a 4:1 ratio is best. this means the for every 4 meters you go up you want to move the ladder’s feet 1 meter out from the wall/house. This will ensure that the feet are planted firmly on the ground and won’t slip out and not to close that when you get to the top the ladder will lean and fall back. Mentioning feet you want to make sure you are on a solid non-sloping ground, if the ground is loose putting weight on the ladder may cause a foot to sink and lean the ladder in and angle, and starting on a sloped surface is just a recipe for a bad idea. There are ladders with feet that can be adjusted for this but we will keep it simple here. Also having someone foot the ladder when going up or down is always a good idea, even on the best surfaces accidents can happen

Ladders Little Helper is a inexpensive safety device that can save you, your ladder and your gutters, and for only $52 at bunnings at the time of writing this it is a no brainer. They are plastic molding that yoou can place on a pole and hook onto your gutters where you plan on placing you ladder, after placing on and when art the top of the ladder you can tie the ladder to the helper to ensure it is attached and won’t move when working.

Another safety tip is to always inspect your ladder before using it, whether you have a wodden, aluminium of fiberglass ladder wear and tear will happen, rivets on fiberglass ladders and break, nails in wood ladders can come loose and the worst time to find this out is when you are going up/down it.

We hope these safety tips help you.