Ladders 

Aluminium Ladders

By far the most common ladders today are the extruded aluminium ladders.
Either single pole or extensions.
There is a huge variation in quality and strength of the ones on the market.  All I can say is get the best you can afford.  Look for solid construction. If you are hiring a ladder it will be of good quality and strength, maybe check that it has not been damaged.

You can pick up used ones for a good price sometimes.  You will be able to tell if it has been damaged.

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Timber Ladders.

Still some of them around. In single form and extensions.  They are made out of  strong straight grained softwood, (spruce comes to mind?)

They are ALWAYS clear finished.  So that you can see any defects.  Don't trust a timber ladder that has been painted for any reason.

Wooden ladders tend to dry out and get loose as they go older.  There are rods under the rungs, joining the two sides together.  They are a bit like motor bike spokes, so I can't see any reason why they could not be tightened up and the ladder given fresh life.

It is a very unsettling experience climbing a sloppy ladder.  Apart from the normal in and out movement as you climb, they also sway side to side.

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Ladder Safety and Tips.

It is rare that you just go up and down a ladder.  You use it to do a job, so you could be carrying tools and materials up it.  You could be on it and be sawing or drilling.  You can apply many kilograms of thrust to the ladder, over and above your own weight when you are working on it, so you need a solid support.

As far as I know ladder rungs are set at 1 foot apart.  So an 18 pin (rung) ladder is 18ft long, plus a bit.  A double 18 pin extension will get you safely onto a 28 ft high roof.  Say four rungs overlap at the join, three rungs over the top and a foot or so for the slope.

ladders - correct position.

On the right is a sketch of an extension ladder leaning on a roof edge.

The angle of the ladder to the vertical is important.  Four to one is the recommended angle ratio.

Note! In nearly 50 years up and down ladders I have never done any sort of measurement for this.  Always I've done it by eye and what feels right.  Having said that, when I was taking the photo below, earlier today I decided to set the ladder at 4:1 ratio and straight away it felt too steep for me.  I needed a bit more out from the wall to feel comfortable.  Just my opinion, but you have to work with what feels right.

If you have it too steep, as you are climbing up it the top tends to skitter about or feel loose.  There is not enough weight resting on the roof edge.

If you place it with too much angle, the bottom is liable to slide out, but more importantly you are making the ladder itself carry too much of your weight instead of the ground.  Also you will be leaning at an unnatural angle as you climb.

• Make sure the ladder is in good condition.
• Make sure it is strong enough for the job.  Ladders have weight ratings on them.  I disobeyed this simple rule once on a step ladder.  I was lifting up a 9" x 3" hardwood beam, and the back frame of the ladder collapsed under me.  No warning.  The beam nearly took my ear off.  (I could have spent the rest of my life looking like Vincent Van Gogh :-)
• Always have the ladder higher than the roof edge, to give you support as you step on and off.
• Never step on any of those higher rungs though, use the one lower than the edge to get onto and off the roof.
• For extension ladders use the manufacturer's recommendations for minimum lap. Personally I hate to see ladders stretched out to their maximum.  I always go for extra strength.  More lap.  If my ladder is not long enough, I just hire one that is.  
• Don't over stretch out on a too short ladder. It is dangerous and apart from that it is not efficient.  If you are drilling, you want to be pushing at just about chest height, not stretching above your head.  Simple logic.  
• If I have the right angle of lean, and a level base, say concrete, I very rarely fix the foot of the ladder.  Or the top for that matter.
• If it is very high, or on uneven or sloping ground then I do  do something to hold the base steady.  Dig it into a hole if its soil, lay a sole plate of timber that is pegged down away from the bottom of the ladder.  Even at odd times I have roped back to pegs closer to the wall.

ladders - Swivel the bottom of the ladder fittings inwards and then bounce on the bottom rung to dig them into the soft ground.

ladders - Top of ladder clipped to a gutter with multigrips.  I should have put a rag or something inbetween to stop the ladder marking the gutter.  Naughty!

• On soft ground like the lawn on the right, flip the base pieces to the inside of the ladder and jump on the bottom rung a couple of times to dig the pointy bits in.
• If the top feels a bit insecure I have also partly unscrewed a couple of roof screws, used tie wire to fix the top of the ladder to them and then screwed them down again.
• The photo shows an occaision where I clipped the top of the ladder to the gutter using multigrips to stop it sliding as I was carrying tools onto the roof.
• Never put anything at the bottom that can cause you to trip as you get off the ladder.  I have seen a couple of star pickets used for holding the bottom rung.  More danger of stepping on them than what they are trying to stop. 
• Don't tread mud and crap onto the rungs, (and then onto the roof too).  Clean your feet first.
• Certain jobs you should not do on your own.  I went on a job about four years ago and there was a young guy sitting in the shade.  He was grey, still suffering from shock.  He had been trying to fix a 6 M. length of metal gutter onto a two storey house on his own from a ladder, and he had lost it.  He had fallen about 18 feet.  I think some shrubs broke his fall and he was unharmed apart from cuts and bruises.  He told me after that he fixed gutters on his own all the time and had never had any trouble before!  I doubt he ever did it again. 

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Raising and Handling Ladders

Straight away the term "foot it" or "footing a ladder" comes to mind.

You are about to raise a 30 ft. ladder.  You say to your offsider, "foot this for me mate".  You go to the top end. He gets at the bottom or foot and puts his boots onto it holding it firmly to the ground.  You lift up your end above your head and walk towards your mate hand over hand on each successive rung, as it gets higher your mate grips the sides and pulls up also.  When it is vertical you both maneuver it into position.

You may not have an assistant handy, so you push the foot into a wall, a pole (not electrical), anything quite solid that will stop the ladder kicking up when you get past half way.

Once you have it vertical you have one hand low down on a rung and one as high as you can reach and just lift it a touch off the ground and walk with it to where you want it.  If it starts to lean, rest it down and steady it before moving again.

Dropping it is the reverse procedure.

A small extension you can handle one man, lift it and extend it with the ropes no worries.

For large extensions, extend it first then lift as normal.  If you land on the roof but need it a bit higher, a pull on the ropes will take it up a couple more rungs or so.  Make sure that the hooks on the top part of the extension are properly locked into place before you start using the ladder.

If you are short of room to raise the fully extended ladder, raise it in it's compact form and extend it when you have it vertical, with one man holding the ladder and one pulling the ropes.

If there are no ropes to raise it, two of you hold it while the youngest guy on the job climbs the vertical ladder pushing the extension up before him.  The two on the ground reassure the young guy that they have everything under control if he happens to get a bit windy.   (Ha Ha, did you spot the "I was only joking" in this last section?  You know I wouldn't tell you anything that our mates at Occupational Health and Safety might frown upon).

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Electrical safety ladders.

These are usually made out of fiberglass, but some are still made out of timber, for their non conductive properties.  A variation they sometimes have is a rope instead of the top rung, so that the ladder can rest against a round pole safely.

Cat Ladders

ladders - Sketch of a cat ladder showing an exaggerated large size of ladder, just for clarity.

These are ladders for working on steeply sloped roofs.  All the ones I have seen  have been home made and out of fairly flimsy timber.  Say 3" x1"  sides and 2" x 1" rungs.  About the same width as an ordinary ladder.

Sometimes the joints are housed in, sometimes just screwed.

They don't have to be very strong, as they are only designed to stop you sliding off the roof when working on it.  The roof itself provides the support.

Say if I had to fix a skylight in a roof that was over 20 or 25 degrees,  I would probably make up two of them.  one on either side of the work area.  They would give me a secure footing while doing the work.  I could hook my tool bucket onto a rung and also lodge the materials on them.

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Step Ladders

ladders - Since the time a cheap step ladder collapsed under me I have always bought the double sided type.

Again these are mostly extruded aluminium, with a very wide range of qualities.  Some of them unfold into an ordinary ladder, but so far I have not seen one of these combination things than I would be happy working on.  A couple of the steel ones I have seen were quite robust.

Apart from just plain strength, these double sided ones give a lot more range for the one ladder position, so if I am painting (cutting in) around a ceiling, I go up one side and reach to paint 4 or 5 ft. then step over the top and reach an extra 4 ft or so.

The small three step ladder is my favourite, I use it for heaps of small jobs around the house.

The taller one is a replacement for a similar one that I had for years.  It got stolen so I replaced it with exactly the same ladder.

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leave ladders and back to roofs intro.