Chicken Foot Ladder / Design Help Needed

marty

1 MW
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
2,810
Location
Buffalo, New York USA
Putting a standing seam metal roof on a house. Metal panels are attached with screws to horizontal 2x4s called purlins. Purlins are every 2 feet and easy to climb on.

Roof is too steep to walk on. Slope is 10 inches down for every 12 inches across. Roofers say 10/12 pitch.

Metal roof panels are 16 inches wide and 17 feet long. They look like this:
FF100_PANEL_PROFILE.gif
Metal roof panels have been installed on both sides of the roof. They are like a sliding board. Not fun type of sliding board. Slide off and die. Now I got to install the ridge cap. Ridge cap is made from steel sheet metal same color as the roof. Ridge cap pieces are 12 foot long. They look like this:
VENTED_RIDGE_ASSEMBLY.gif
I got a chicken foot attachment that goes on a ladder. Also called ladder hook. Looks like this:
ladder_hook.jpg
From the bottom edge of the roof you roll it up then flip it over. Here is a picture:
ladder_hook_how_to.jpg
Problem is that this chicken foot ladder lays flat on the roof. There is no room to get the ridge cap underneath it. I have never done this before. Talked to other metal roof guys. They all say. "Rent a lift." Lift looks like this.
Articulating_Boom_Lift_45_Electric.jpg
Problem is that I am slow. Not slow as in retarded. Slow as in it takes me a long time to install a metal roof. Too much time spent thinking, drawing, typing? I am guessing that renting a lift like the one in that picture costs about $200 a day. If I need it for a year, think I would own it. Would be a nice tool to have.

Here is my plan. Marty's custom Chicken Foot Ladders. Please see picture:
View attachment 5
Now go fire up your big computers and please download 2 drawings in PDF format. Page size is 17x11. Think you should be able to view with Adobe Reader no problem.
View attachment ladder.02.pdf
View attachment ladder.02x3.pdf
The 1-1/2 inch material is 2 layers of 3/4 inch plywood. I am also thinking of 1/2 aluminum? Think aluminum would cost way more? Question is will this work. Will it break and cause me to fall and die? Just joking :lol: As long as I don't land on my head, think I will survive.

In second PDF file you see 3 chicken foot ladders. There is a 16 foot 2x6 spanning the 3 chicken foot ladders. 2x6 will be held on with roof brackets. See ladder.02x3.pdf
ladder02x3.gif
I got one of the worlds largest collections of roof brackets. they look like this:
View attachment 8
Roof brackets are normally nailed to the roof. Nails go under the tab of the shingle. If you don't hit a rafter, I don't climb on them. Roof brackets on a shingle roof look like this.
View attachment 7
Not sure how to hang roof brackets from the rungs of the ladders? Thinking I will go to the metal fabrication guy and have him bend some sheet steel to a U shape.

Chicken Foot Ladder Construction Plan
Nothing done yet. Only drawings on paper.

Buy 6 - 8' Type IA Fiberglass D-Rung Straight Ladders. $100 each at local place. 6 ladders will make 3 two sided custom chicken foots. Ladders look like this:
D6208-1_8foot_ladder.jpg
At the bottom of each ladder is a shoe. Shoe is attached with a bolt. Shoe looks like this:
D6208-1_8foot_ladder_shoe.jpg
Planing to take the shoes off. Grind the heads off the rivets that hold the aluminum shoe bracket to the fiberglass rail. Cut the 8 foot ladders down to 6 foot and attach the aluminum shoe bracket to the top of the ladder. Now I have a nice heavy duty bolt pivot hole at the top of the ladder. Ladders pivot where they attach to my custom made Cs. Reason I want to flip the ladders upside down is because the rungs are D shaped. Users foot goes on the flat side of the D.

Buy two sheets of good quality 3/4 inch plywood. Exterior plywood with lots of layers and no voids. See 3/4"x4x8 MARINE AB PLYWOOD here http://www.lencobuffalo.com/ got to go look at it. Apply contact cement to one side of each sheet. Stick the two sheets together. Marty's special method of pressing the sheets tight together...... Lay them on flat on the ground. Ground as in concrete. Drive back and forth with a car or truck to press them together. Cut Cs out with a jig saw.

Anyone have any other ideas to get to the peak of a metal roof? Electric magnets attached to the bottom of my shoes? Tie a rope to a cloud?

Will my custom chicken foot contraptions work? Will the Cs twist? Will 1-1/2 inch plywood be strong enough? Any better, safer ideas? Where is Safe when you need him?
 
When I've done it, when it was time for the roof cap, I'd just make sure that I was tied off properly and straddled the peak, scooting along as I go.
 
I do all my own building, etc., at 69 years old. Danny said what I would have. Tie a rope around something, a car, a tree, something, and straddle the peak. Tie a few pieces of cap so you can pull them to you.
 
If you're straddling the peak, a rope on each side is recommended. ;) You can throw a few ropes over the peak at intervals, tied off on each side, and leave enough slack that you can scoot far enough to transfer between them. Tie a loop in the center of each rope to hook your carabiner to.

To be totally honest though, I rarely used ropes...I was just really careful and tried not to fall. Propanel is slick though and sliding over the screw heads sucks! The fall to the ground is the easy part. :shock:
 
Tie a rope to the ground and throw it over the peak. Good idea! Never thought of that. You guys must be mountain climbers. I got a bunch of tree climbing equipment. Had a old mountain climbing guy give me some tree climbing lessons. He started to cut down the tree while I was in it. Said it was the fastest way to get me to come down. Tree trimming with ropes is a skill that I don't have.

The cap pieces that I got are not like this picture. Bottom piece screws down. Top piece kind of snaps on then is riveted. V shaped cap pieces are 12 feet long. Snapping the top piece on is a bit tricky. See RED arrows:
VENTED_RIDGE_ASSEMBLY_arrow.gif
snap_close_up.gif
Did some snapping the top piece experiments on the ground. Two guys working on a saw horse had difficult time with this. We used a siding removal tool.
Malco-tools-SRT1-SideSwiper.jpg


I would feel better if I had something to stand on when working on the peak. Build some triangle shaped wood roof brackets big enough for my 12 inch wide picks. Picks look like this:
4XN40_AS01

Tie brackets off like you recommend. Rope over the peak and tied to something on the ground.
 
well... maybe I'm just a blithering idiot,
but won't the ropes over the ridge prevent the ridge cap from being installed.

Also.. rope is for Cowboys
:shock:
 
if your metal goes over skip sheathing that is just a single 4" board 24" apart then you will have a lot of trouble working on the roof when it is down. it will bend wherever force comes down on it.

your ladder hooks will need broader support where they rest on the top and you should layout with your top piece of skip sheathing at the point where the ladder hooks will pull down on the roofing. it needs a lot of support right there.

you can carry blocking up with you to raise the ladder above the peak enuff to run the ridge underneath the ladder hook. the blocks will need cushioning to not damage the metal and they will have to be exactly above the skip sheathing under the metal. critical. tape them in place.

10/12 is steep. i helped my neighbor and most of his was 10/12. that actually helped because we were able to pull the barge rafter up square again on the outside with a come along running from the bottom of the barge on each side up over the peak and down, then jacked the entire outer edge of the roof up 3" with the come along to make the barge ends square again.

then we laid the new sheathing down over the skip sheathing and stapled and nailed it down so that it now holds the barge rafter square as it was originally 100 years ago. the knee braces have a big space above them now that the barge rafter is pulled up and they are still pushed down with age so he put spacers in the gap.

most roofers carry the roof jacks up the roof as they work and don't leave them behind. if you make a mistake in driving the jack's hook nail down with the wonder bar and hammering on the top shingle above the wonder bar when you pull the roof jacks then you have to unweave the book back to that shingle in order to replace it.

so if you go all the way up the roof without the roof jacks you can be vulnerable to an accident when you have to drive the nails home with the shingles over them. i have never seen roofers leave them and i don't either. just makes more work to carry more roof jacks up too. that steep 10/12 is hard, impossible, to work without them though. 8/12 i can do bare. barely.
 
That does look difficult. Roofs that steep are not to be fooled around with as you well know by now. Might be you should have installed cap as you went, when you could still get up there easier.

Straddling the roof could work for something screwed down using the typical screws for channel drain roof. But that cap system looks pretty tricky. Given the danger of using the ladder hook on such steep and slippery roof, you might consider just hiring the roofers with a lift to quickly install your cap.

Only other thing I can think of besides tying off or a lift, would be some kind of ledge made from a large plywood piece screwed to your fascia, that ladder feet could be supported by. This would of course, leave your fascia full of holes after.
 
Looking closer at your drawings, It could work. Back up anything you build with ropes. What I mean is, if the hoop should fail somehow, two stout ropes would still connect the two ladders over the top, as a back up.

Tie offs still recommended, each of you tied off over the top, to a car on the other side. Only keys to those cars IN YOU POCKET. Saw a guy tie off to a car once, and the car drove off. He just zipped up the roof and over the top. Tied to each other over the top could work too, if you weigh the same more or less.
 
You double ladder C chicken foot will work, though 2 pieces of 1/2" seems a bit weak. A big yes on the safety strap. My question is how are you going to get it up there, since it's not a roll it up and flip it over like the normal chicken foot rig.

Buying a bunch of ladders though instead of one day of the lift, I'd rent the lift for that one day. I take it back, I love DIY but this is a case where you need to rent yourself a helper, someone light weight and can climb like a monkey with experience and needs the work. Everyone wins except Home Depot that doesn't get to sell you unnecessary ladders.

John
 
you guys have never had to pay rent on a lift i see.

the biggest problem you have is the lack of support of the metal in between the skip sheathing as i said. your ladder hook in the picture is quite sophisticated. the ones i have seen are just lumber nailed together, but on composition roofs, not metal like this.

are you familiar with ladder jacks? you might be able to use a ladder jack inverted on the top of the ladder. tied on to keep it in place while pushing it up and then it would have to have support where it rests on the skip sheathing underneath. you could even use a piece of lumber with carpet pad on it so that the lumber would span two pieces of the skip sheathing to bear the weight. the metal will bend bad if you step between the skip sheathing too.
 
No, never had to pay for the lift. Have seen people fall a few stories though. It's not pretty, one had to learn to walk again and was lucky he could walk. I used to walk top plate 2 stories up, so it's not that I'm a chickenshit. It's that walking the shaky wall top two stories up, you still always had the option to step off in rather than fall out.

In this case, the nature of the top cap makes straddling the ridge difficult or impossible.

It should be possible though, to build a work platform from good knot free lumber and plywood. Something like an A frame with a big cutout for the ridge cap space. Using plywood for the sides, something like the latter design, but with a larger step for the worker to stand on. Make the plywood sides at least 2 feet wide for strength. Tying off from both sides will prevent a fall to the ground either way. Rappeling off one side will allow moving the work platform. Make it about 8 feet long, so you can position yourself to reach 10 feet of cap at a time.

Though I never did a lot of roofing, I have built a few hundred houses, putting the plywood on those roofs. So I'm not just spewing shit I never had anything to do with. You don't screw around once it's above a 4 in 12 slope. A man lift is expensive, but so is a being a quadriplegic.
 
?s with answers in CAPITALS

won't the ropes over the ridge prevent the ridge cap from being installed.
YES

ledge made from a large plywood piece screwed to your fascia
COVERED FASCIA WITH SAME COLOR METAL SO THAT WON'T WORK. ALSO I WOULD NOT TRUST 100 YEAR OLD WOOD FASCIA.

Saw a guy tie off to a car once, and the car drove off. He just zipped up the roof and over the top.
CARS SCARE ME. I GOT ORANGE CONES TO KEEP IDIOTS FROM DRIVING INTO MY LADDERS. OLD HOUSES HERE WITH DRIVEWAYS BETWEEN THEM.

2 pieces of 1/2" seems a bit weak.
NO 1/2". 2 SHEETS OF 3/4" PLYWOOD.

are you familiar with ladder jacks? you might be able to use a ladder jack inverted on the top of the ladder. tied on to keep it in place while pushing it up and then it would have to have support where it rests on the skip sheathing underneath. you could even use a piece of lumber with carpet pad on it so that the lumber would span two pieces of the skip sheathing to bear the weight.
GOOD IDEA.

build a work platform from good knot free lumber and plywood. Something like an A frame with a big cutout for the ridge cap space.
GOOD LOW COST IDEA. BUT NOT EASILY MOVEABLE. SOON AS THIS ROOF IS DONE, I GOT TO DO A SECOND ONE.
 
i just reread your first one. if you already have this chicken foot ladder hook, then use some blocking under the ladder where it rests on the underlying skip sheathing to pick your working ladder up off of the ridge.

use blocking on the far side to push the hook off the top of the ridge.

this is a barn i assume which is why it is not plywood?

in your second picture you showed several of these set up across the roof. you should be able to work one section of the vent at a time and move down the ridge as you finish with the pop rivets at each joint. not sure why they don't spec screws. but use the polyurethane under the pop rivet when you insert it.

or you could make a small platform that spanned the ridge like he said and then work from that on the ridge vent underneath you and move it down by a few joints of the roofing each time.

maybe even have a separate roof jack that hooks over the ridge to support your weight when you move that platform or need to reach.

i would expect a 30' lift, the cheap electric type to cost about $300-400/day and if you watch on CL you may find one used for $2k. expect to fix it.
 
You're making a mountain out of a molehill. If you tie the ropes to the ground, on BOTH sides, and leave them loose enough that you can stay hooked to one rope and reach the next one, there will be plenty of slack to slide the cap under them. If you fall, the rope will catch you before you gain much momentum or slide off of the roof. Just wear soft bottomed, sticky shoes (a flap disc on an angle grinder makes tennis shoes super sticky;) Don't go too crazy with it, just get the embedded dirt out. ) and keep your weight low and centered once you're straddling the ridge.

If the cap is difficult to get popped over the brackets, the brackets are too far apart and/or the caps have been flattened out a little too much. It should be easy to just push the cap over the brackets until it flexes and pops over them. Sometimes the pile of caps gets smashed at the factory or warehouse and it opens them up a little too far, making it hard to get them to open further to get around the brackets. You can place the brackets closer to each other and bend a little more angle into the caps before you haul them up on the roof if this has happened. If everything's set up right, being able to straddle the caps and put your body weight on them makes it a simple procedure. Set cap in place. Straddle cap and push down on the peak with both hands as you scoot back and forth. It will pop right on then you just go back over it and rivet it. I wish I was in your neighborhood. We'd be drinking beers by now. :D
 

Attachments

  • marty roof.jpg
    marty roof.jpg
    65.7 KB · Views: 2,164
Re: use some blocking under the ladder where it rests on the underlying skip sheathing to pick your working ladder up off of the ridge.
Won't work. Hook is too short. See picture.
View attachment 3

Re: this is a barn i assume which is why it is not plywood?
No barn. Two story house. Here is a simple drawing of the roof.
View attachment 2
Here is the drawing that I gave Metal Roof Guy.
View attachment roof.01.pdf
Trim pieces were bent on the biggest brake I have ever seen. Computer controlled brake. Roof panels were made at the job site on a portable machine that spit them out.

We went on top of the existing roof. Wood shingles and one or two layers of asphalt shingles. Ice guard at the bottom, 30 pound felt, and special fire proof paper on top of that. Building inspector gave me the fire paper idea. This allowed me to go on top of old roofing. Building codes normally don't allow lots of old layers of old roofing under a metal roof because fire can race around under the metal. The fire men don't like it when that happens. If fire ever does start racing around under my roof, my plan is to leave. Here is a detailed description of VersaShield® Underlayment Fire-Resistant Roof Deck Protection
View attachment Versashield__Fire-Resistant_Roof_Deck_Protection-224-864-v3.pdf
On top of the fire paper I took some old 2x wood and ripped it to 7/8" x 1 1/2" strips with a table saw. Nailed these strips vertically on top of old roofing and new paper with a nail gun that has no air hose. Vertical 7/8" x 1 1/2" strips are directly over existing rafters. On top of vertical 7/8" x 1 1/2" strips we fastened horizontal 2x4 purlins with 6 inch expensive dry wall screws from Fastenal. Fastenal SKU: 0142362
#10-8 x 6" Phillips Bugle Head Deck Screw, Dacrotized
http://www.fastenal.com/web/products/details/0142362?searchMode=productSearch&rfqXref=&rfqKeyword=&rfqId=&rfqLineId=

Re: sticky shoes
Look at your drawing. You are Spider Man. I am Scaffolding Boy. I see spiders climb up a vertical wall. Wonder how they do that? To improve my climbing skills I was thinking of having my head transplanted onto a monkey body. See Head transplant

Electric magnets attached to the bottom of my shoes?

Changed the chicken foot ladders a bit. More modified chicken foot drawings coming.
 
i am surprised he let you put the roof on top of two layers of asphalt. that would not be legal here. you should strip it, then lay down OSB on the skip sheathing so you have a permanent roof. if it has shingle originally the skip sheathing is not gonna be more than 4-5" apart though.
 
maybe you decided to use the metal roofing because you thought stripping down to the skip sheathing is too hard but it really is the best and actually only way to do it.

you can park your pickup under the eaves, use tall sideboards to hold it, and then strip the old roof from the top, not the bottom. start by peeling it up at the ridge and work down from there to keep all the debris on top of the roof and not fall into the attic. a lot of the shingles come up together because they are nailed through each other, and just push it off the roof into the truck. the big chunks are easier to handle because is is less work.

if you have never done it you can look around and find people who do it all the time and they need the work and can do it faster. they will have the fall arrestors and know how to rope off.

they will have the big truck with dump bed too which makes it so much easier, on top of them helping. the roof will be off in a day and the new OSB down by the second and they will be shingling even before all the sheathing is down depending on how many in the crew.

i did most of mine because i had no money but got some free money from paypal to pay a guy to help me shingle it. i actually did separate the asphalt from the wood shingles so that i could recycle everything. i am into recycling.

35 squares, 95 bundles of shingles. bot all the sheathing, lumber and shingles on credit from home depot. total $3400 including $900 to him for labor, so i saved maybe $6-7k because i had to build a new roof over a porch addition from the 80's. i could do all this myself, but the world changes when you do a roof. you will always have the roofer guy attitude of being superior, you worked on a roof. after that my neighbor decided he could do his too, but his was the 10/12 so i helped him too. but i do have roof jacks and we used them, just moved them up the roof every 4-5 rows. when you nail the roof jack down, nail into a rafter. use 16d nails because if the roof jack is holding 8 bundles of shingles and you it weighs 1,000 lbs.

the trick to getting the roof jack off is to hit it at the bottom to knock it off the head of the nail. the nail is under several layers of shingles. you roll the upper layers up in order to get the wonder bar down on top of the nail head, then hit the wonder bar through the shingle above the wonder bar. you will not be able to reach the nail head with the hammer because a shingle will be in the way so you have to slip the wonder bar under that last shingle so it is on the head of the nail, then hammer on the shingle right above the wonder bar on the nail to sink the nail head all the way into the sheathing. you cannot leave that nail head up or it will puncture the roof. hope this helps if you are new to this. but you gotta strip it, otherwise you will always regret it.
 
Striping off old roofing is fun. I have done many tear offs. Lots of dirt. Lots of labor. I got 40 garbage cans. Put garbage cans on the ground. Try to get the roofing to fall into the cans. Jump on roofing to compact it. Put the cans out for the garbage men. Garbage men look at my ridiculous amount of old roofing and say "We are not taking that." I say "Do you take money?" They usually say Yes. Give them $50 or $100, help them throw roofing into the truck and everyone is happy :D

Got deep into the code book.

http://publicecodes.cyberregs.com/st/ny/st/index.htm
J502.4.3 Recovering versus replacement. New roof coverings shall not be installed without first removing existing roof coverings where any of the following conditions occur:

1. Where the existing roof or roof covering is water-soaked or has deteriorated to the point that the existing roof or roof covering is not adequate as a base for additional roofing.

2. Where the existing roof covering is wood shake or shingle, slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile.

3. Where the existing roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering.

4. For asphalt shingles, when the building is located in an area subject to moderate or severe hail exposure according to Figure R903.5.

Exceptions:

1. Complete and separate roofing systems, such as standing-seam metal roof systems, that are designed to transmit the roof loads directly to the building’s structural system and that do not rely on existing roofs and roof coverings for support shall not require the removal of existing roof coverings.

2. Installation of metal panel, metal shingle, and concrete and clay tile roof coverings over existing wood shake or shingle roofs shall be permitted when the application is in accordance with Section J502.4.4.


3. The application of new protective coating over existing spray polyurethane foam roofing systems shall be permitted without tear-off of existing roof coverings.


J502.4.4 Roof recovering. Where the application of a new roof covering over wood shingle or shake roofs creates a combustible concealed space, the entire existing surface shall be covered with gypsum board, mineral fiber, or glass fiber securely fastened in place.

Also had to get a letter from a architect saying additional weight is OK.
 
sorry but that is bad advice imo. initially you said 24" between skip sheathing which is common for a new pole barn construction with metal roofing which this is, it is not standing seam roofing where the seam is rolled. your skip sheathing is equal to exposure of the original shingles, about 5". this is a regular metal roof like what is used on pole barns. but you have a regular shingle roof and i guarantee the shingles are crap.

if you strip 20 squares of 3 layers it will be 3 tons of roofing so you never would put it in garbage cans except to carry it from an inaccessible place to the truck. that is why help is so useful because they are young and need the work so they don't have to live on welfare.

i guarantee you will regret it ever time you look up at the eaves and see all the rotten shingles from the edge and the metal roof above them. plus the extra long screws needed to reach the skip sheathing pulling down against an uneven surface will distort the metal roof and when the shingles underneath continue to disintegrate then the metal roof will become loose on the screws and those pinch seams will tear open in the wind. that is why standing seam roof where the seam is rolled are stronger than regular pole barn metal roofs.
 
This is standing seam metal roofing. No rolling tool needed. Panels snap together. No exposed screws. Please see picture.

No old roofing will be visible. I had metal guy bend trim shapes to cover fascia and rake edges. Same color as roof. Beautiful Hawaiian Blue. Also covering soffits with vinyl soffit panels.

Framing is strong. What goes wrong with this type of roofing is the paint on the steel fails and the steel rusts. Hoping it lasts as long as I do. I am 51.
 
i tried to help, just did not realize you had hired someone to install the roof already and they left without installing the ridge cap. i really thought when you said there was 24" spacing that it had to be a pole barn. but then it changed and it turned out you were laying metal roofing on top of 3 layers of shingles which really was entirely different from what you had originally stated. i gave advice on how to rig up a ladder jack based on that expectation and was thinking you were just planning this and i did not know the roofers had walked out on you and left you to install the ridge.

"What goes wrong with this type of roofing is the paint on the steel fails and the steel rusts" is not how it fails. what happens is that the shingles continue to disintegrate over time and screws that hold it down then get loose and the roof leaks around the screw heads where they are exposed.

imo you will find the cricket to be the biggest problem especially if the roofers did not install it.

but you gotta learn sometimes. i was lucky because i was able to learn from experienced roofers, and with most of the stuff i learn i try to pass on what i can to those who are learning.

i just cannot believe they did that to you but i guess it is just money to them. but if you read about standing seam roofing you will see why they will last a hundred years and the pole barn roofs do not.
 
You miss understand what I type. Sorry about that. Metal Guy is guy at the company who sells the metal. They actually only sell to lumberyards and roofing / siding supply places. I dealt directly with him then paid $4000 to a lumberyard.

I am doing the whole job by myself with help. Usually one guy.
 
Around here lots of people are doing metal roofs with exposed screws. I'm planning on doing either standing seam or 5v metal with exposed screws. It's a 12/12 pitch. I was planning on a really long ladder that reached to roof peak and a rope over the top to one of the many trees.
 
Back
Top