Slippery slopes!

How do you stay safe while you are working on a roof? One of the most important considerations is what is on your feet! Our lab was contracted by a new local roofing company to develop recommendations for safe footwear for their employees. We used two roof models to test 5 kinds of footwear: sneakers, sandals, boots, hi-tops, and flats. One model roof surface was a wooden board to simulate a bare roof before they nail on shingles. The second roof model was a board with shingles. Here are the results of our testing:

 Shingles:

Bare wood:

Then, we had to help the roofing company again. We used what we learned from our roof shoe slide experiment to design structures that roofers can use to hold their tools and supplies when they are on a roof.