Just thought I would share pics of where my accident happend. Ill tell you how it happened and how I may have been able to mitigate the risk.
A different angle
I was cleaning the area annotated in the picture. Finally cracked the code on whats going to get me best results ( in Hawaii it’s not as simple as spray on spray off. Im not going to give away all my secrets and why this is true, but simply put you have to scrub to remove certain dirt and debris.
I was getting into the window cleaning and was watching front to back but not paying attention to my peripheral boundaries. I ended walking right off the side of the roof.
So far the only risk mitigation i have thought of for this is:
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Pay more attention
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Put up a piece of cardboard to remind you where you are. So if your moving left right you will hit cardboard before you make that last step.
If you have a better suggestion lay it on me. I went back and looked for anchoring points and there are not any that I could find. If you see something im not seeing SPEAK UP please. I never want to go through this again or anyone for that matter.
Not to kick you while you’re down, but that little lip seems a bit dicey to me. Could you have hit it with your WFP or was something stopping you from doing that?
Not enough room going back to get a descent angle. I was also up there doing a building wash. So I needed to be able to hit the full side of it. I agree that it does look a little dicey, but I can honestly say that there was ample room to maneuver. It could be the angle of the picture. From what I remember it was roughly 4 feet front to back. I use my WFP A LOT, but no chance of hittin it right with 4 ft to clear
What about if you had wfp’ed the large top panel and then opened the jalousies and done both sides from the inside. Or I would think you could have turned your body to face the edge instead of backing toward it.
I wasnt cleaning windows. I was washing the the house siding. I didnt fall off backwards either. I stepped off the side with my right shoulder facing the direction of the fall.
and Jalousies on a second story is a no brainer, do it from the inside. We have a lot of them out here.
I dont know maybe i should not have been up there… From your experience what would you have done? Whats your take knowing that you have 4 feet front to back? You have to get up there no matter what. No equipment is going to do the job you need done from the ground. You have to get the inside of the soffit/eaves.
i think you should add don’t step back to admire your work to your list
once again… i stepped off it sideways>>>>>>> certainly a good thing to remember though
Accidents happen. I think the only thing you can do in a situation like this is to walk around the building before you get started and note things like this. Also, [B]when you’re on a roof, have a ground man.[/B] Another set of eyes would have been able to yell at you that you were getting too close to the edge.
I don’t fault you for being on the roof to wash that. That would be the easiest way to clean the underside of the soffit. Those have lips on them, and unless you spray them from the right angle you will see dirt on them if you look outside from the window. Most pressure washers would forget about that, only seeing what they see from the ground. Great job on realizing that.
It’s kind of critical because that is what the customer sees most when they look out of they’re window. I think having a spotter would have been the best solution. Unfortunately i had started before my worker got there and a good walk around noting safety concerns would have absolutely been the right thing to do. Failure on my part for that. I guess we take it for granted that sometimes we dont view situations as dangerous because we have done so many similar things in the past.
Not to be critical, but did you finish the window cleaning? I see a bird bomb or bug splatter on that window 
lol yeah when I fell I and put my hand out he tried to help me up but I told him I wanted my money hahahah no just kidding. I was 30 min into the cleaning when I fell off. Just starting to hit my groove with the softwash… window cleaning comes after 
