Tools, Equipment and Safe Working at Height
Tools and equipment
Candidates should recognise gas torches, hot bitumen boilers, rollers, seam rollers, knives, sanders/grinders, moisture meters, and fall-arrest and edge-protection equipment. Understand the safe use, inspection and maintenance of each, and the need for pre-use checks on ladders, harnesses and torches.
Working at height
Know the hierarchy for work at height: avoid, prevent, mitigate. Understand guardrails, edge protection, harness and anchor points, ladder safety (angle, footing, securing, three points of contact), and fragile roof precautions such as crawling boards and stagings. Recognise that weather - wind, ice, rain - affects both safety and membrane quality.
Traps to watch
- Ladders used as a work platform rather than access.
- Harness worn but not anchored, or anchored to a non-rated point.
- Fragile roof treated as a normal surface without crawling boards.
- Torch equipment not leak-tested before use.
Worked rule of thumb
Use the A-P-M hierarchy: Avoid the height where possible, Prevent falls with edge protection or guardrails, Mitigate with harness and anchor systems. Ladder rule of thumb: 1 in 4 - one unit out for every four units up, secured at the top.