"mm" wrote in message
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On 4 Sep 2006 06:49:23 -0700, "Section 31" wrote:

Unrelated to your question, what really made me feel better on the
ladder, better even than when I was thinner, was using a ladder
stabilizer. They are either under 20 or under 40 dollars and worth
every penny. Except for the three piece one that can be narrow and far
from the wall or wide and close to the wall. I forget how much that
is, and no one around here sold it, but I would have bought it if I
hadn't gotten one free in a friend's junk. (I only needed the U-bolts,
in a previous thread.)

Anyone who has ever had to climb off a ladder onto a roof - and then back on
the ladder again - knows how important a stabilizer can be. It's a lot
easier to climb off the ladder than to get back on it. Ask any volunteer
fireman in a residential area. They'll tell you about the calls they had to
go on to rescue a homeowner stranded on a roof. It's still not easy with a
stabilizer, but at least you feel like you have a chance. I'm amazed that
anyone would try to work without one. The laws of physics work differently
when you are at the top of a ladder or on a roof. First, you find that it's
a lot farther from the roof to the ground than it is from the ground to the
roof Secondly, as you approach the edge of the roof, even if you are right
on top of the peak, you'll find that gravity actually comes up and then
moves sideways as it tugs you toward the edge.

Another thing to take into consideration is the angle of the ladder. Ladders
generally "feel" more stable if they are at more of an angle, and are less
likely to fall over. But that puts a lot more stress on the ladder. I have
one place where there's a room on the first floor that juts out a little
bit, so I have to have the ladder at a 45 degree angle to get to the roof.
At 150 pounds, I probably could have gotten by with a Type II ladder, but
because of this one spot, I went with Type I. I would have gone with Type
IA, but I think then it would have been too heavy to handle.

I remember several years ago when we had our house painted, and at one very
high section where the ground is at the level of the basement floor, the
painters used a 40 foot ladder with a section of another ladder tied to the
top of it - and of course no stabilizer. Since it was so much work to move
it, they leaned out as far as they could to paint as much area as possible.
I knew right then that I didn't have the Right Stuff. When I had vinyl
siding put on a few years later, the contractor said he planned to rent a 50
foot ladder to do that area. I wasn't home when they did that work, so I
don't know what they used.