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Colleges and universities have a dual need to protect students and workers in a variety of settings. Rooftops require extensive safety protocols for what seems like a small city's worth of dormitories, academic buildings, and other campus structures. Given the breadth of these challenges, roof fall protection systems must be highly adaptable to meet roof safety challenges when they arise.
These and other competing needs don't necessarily limit how industrial technicians must approach campus-wide rooftop safety. However, they do compel a concerted push towards more adaptable and user-friendly safety equipment. It will help you ensure everyone goes home safe and maintain regulatory compliance with OSHA or your state plan.
Academia can easily have some of the busiest rooftops outside a construction or industrial setting. The scope of work can also be much wider, with roof cleaning and maintenance, rooftop equipment, duct work, drainage systems, and many other tasks constantly demanding campus technicians’ attention.
Ideally, colleges and universities would know exactly what kind of long-term rooftop activity to expect, and with minimal surprises. However, technicians don't always know what kind of maintenance work to prepare for. Without the right equipment, it can be tempting to neglect preparations entirely, which only slows rooftop work down when accidents occur.
Due to these uncertainties, it's essential to focus your search on adaptable designs from the beginning. More versatile roof fall protection systems and portable guardrails allow technicians to cover their most urgent fall protection needs faster and more easily. This also enables faster response when unexpected challenges arise.
Fortunately, these challenges all point the way to a more versatile fall protection system. It's exactly what leading fall protection manufacturers have been developing over the past several decades, arriving at a more streamlined form and function that's much more suitable for campus structures.
Temporary roof safety railing is not just a matter of utility and speed. It also fulfills a need for fall protection solutions that neatly conform to their surroundings. Colleges and universities are careful not to detract from iconic architectural elements the school is known for.
This can, however, drive a reliance on more complex fall protection systems. While there's nothing wrong with using lanyards and safety cables, it shouldn't be done simply because they're easier to conceal, especially when a faster, easier solution is available.
With folding guardrails, campus technicians can quickly lock their fall protection barriers in place and perform their work. When finished, these temporary roof safety railing products just as easily collapse, maintaining job-readiness from above, but without disrupting sightlines, below.
Like portable guardrails, folding safety rails are suitable for a wide range of work requirements and easy placement. Other benefits of folding guardrails include:
Non-penetrating baseplates, for unlimited mounting options
Different colored powder coating options, plus galvanized steel
Choice of 3–10 ft (0.9–3.0 m) lengths
Easy and secure one-way pivot assemblies
Suitable at leading edges or around equipment
Perhaps their greatest quality is that collapsible rails often go unnoticed. During homecoming weekend, for instance, audiences wouldn't even know if campus buildings had recently undergone heavy renovations.
Even if you could secure every building's roof with its own dedicated guardrails, temporary roof safety railing is still a more effective choice. With non-penetrating mounts, you can adjust the rails around your workflow while also protecting the roof's surface.
This alone gives non-penetrating guardrails the advantage over vertical post mounts that can immediately void roof warranties. Permanent fall protection equipment also raises the possibility of painting yourself into a corner, if the same equipment ever proves more of an obstacle to new operational requirements.
Knowing you can move your guardrails at will gives you the ability to alter boundaries to accommodate new types of equipment, access points, or future construction. It will also support roof-specific maintenance services, which can happen anywhere on the roof's surface.
You can also use the same portable guardrails at ground level, in case you need to stretch maintenance resources in creative ways. Of course, there's also nothing stopping you from using portable rails in a permanent capacity. The essential matter is that you can use them either way.
At interior roof access points, it's necessary to protect workers from the interior hatch opening while supporting safe movement onto and off the ladder, such as with a roof hatch safety rail. No matter how briefly the roof hatch might be open, it still constitutes an interior hole (see 1926.501[b][4]), requiring the same consideration as almost any other roof fall protection challenge.
There are also multiple roof hatch safety rail designs on the market with particular configurations of handrails and/or safety gates. Depending on the exact hatch railing enclosure you choose, you might expect any combination of the following benefits:
Adjustable grab bars, for matching the ladder's width
Mount pad adjustments that can compensate for uneven surfaces
Durable securing pin to hold grab bar railing in place
Wide, easy-open swing gate
Non-penetrating installation – absolutely no drilling required
Installs in minutes
Depending on your exact application, a roof hatch safety rail can also function as a skylight barrier, fire vent, or floor door protector.
By designing the hatch system so workers pass through a fully gated enclosure before ascending or descending the ladder, you give them a chance to pause and allow their eyes to adjust before continuing on. It also keeps the critical area around the hatch free of items or debris, which is always inappropriate in the areas around a ladder or stairway.
School campuses may be more complex, but their roof fall protection systems don't have to be. While the most innovative fall protection manufacturers do everything they can to simplify your fall safety strategy, nothing can replace the need to reference your local, OSHA, or CCOHS regulations. It's the only sure way to ensure proper compliance.
BlueWater meets the most complex custom roof protection challenges head on. By working closely with our customers across a diverse cross-section of industries, we have a strong sense of the unique challenges they face. For universities and colleges, fall protection needs can easily compound, taking a relatively minor flaw in your safety protocols and transforming it into large workflow bottlenecks (or worse).
Don't put your rooftop activities at risk, especially when the most effective solutions to campus rooftop safety often amount to a strategic application of a small handful of fall protection devices. Contact us using the form in the top right corner of the screen – and tell our dedicated technicians about your school's unique fall protection challenges.
Even though roof hatch openings seem less dangerous than the roof's outer edge, that's not necessarily true, and the same OSHA leading edge fall protection standards apply. While it can seem enormously complex at first glance, roof hatch safety, like most rooftop safety needs, are much easier to meet with the support of a true industry leader.
BlueWater continually advances the technologies behind fall protection systems for roofs. We're proud of our role providing the most streamlined and effective solutions for the majority of fall hazards facing modern workforces today. Contact us today to discuss which roof hatch safety rails, OSHA leading edge fall protection, and overall fall protection systems for roofs will function best with your rooftop ladderway hatch.
