Is It Harmful To Walk On Your Roof

People ask all the time if it s safe for them to walk on their rv roof to do maintenance or otherwise and the truth is there is no clearcut answer.

Is it harmful to walk on your roof.

There aren t all that many asphalt shingle roofs around the area. To illustrate the problem we took three pieces of asphalt shingle and plunged one into a cooler full of ice left one at roof temperature and put the third under a heat lamp. Roofing materials can get very slippery and depending on the slope of the roof it can become a dangerous situation for someone who is unskilled in walking on these areas. In a 2014 study conducted by the bureau of labor statistics there were 647 fatal falls from roofs.

First you should always be certain that a roof is structurally sound before trying to walk on it. Walking on your roof is incredibly dangerous. Roofers are trained to walk on sloped surfaces so contact a roofing professional first if you are planning on doing repairs to your roof. However if you ve driven around the phoenix area and paid any attention to most of the roofs you ve probably noticed something.

Even then with newer roof tiles you can still damage your roof shingles by walking on them. Generally these types of materials are far safer to walk on since you won t be risking damaging your roof in order to do so. If you have a fiberglass roof you most likely can walk on it since fiberglass roofs are the strongest. Roof is uncomfortable or feels unsafe or too fragile for any reason in the opinion of the inspector steep pitch roofs judgment of the inspector high roofs judgment of the inspector.

Even if you don t cause any cracks the pressure and added weight you place on your roof could cause the underlayment and foundation wood to creak crack and develop weaknesses. Beyond the obvious problems of injury walking on a roof can also cause extensive damage to the roof and eventually the interior of the building. Walking on the roof can be a dangerous activity often leading to physical injury and sometimes death. We will review the three roof types in the next section of the article do not walk on a wet roof no matter how much weight it can hold a wet roof is slippery and dangerous don t take a chance and walk on a badly damaged rv roof.

We do not walk directly on any asphalt shingle roof that has one or more of these hazards. Aside from slipping on ice winter is not a bad time to walk on that roof but not the best time. Whether or not you can walk on your rv roof depends on the make and model of your vehicle and the type of support the roof offers for one or more persons.