On June 16, 2011, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will begin to enforce a new residential fall protection compliance directive - STD 03-11-001.

On June 16, 2011, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will begin to enforce a new residential fall protection compliance directive - STD 03-11-001. It requires all contractors performing residential construction to comply in full with 29 CFR, Part 1926.501(b)(13), the residential fall protection standard - meaning that in most cases guardrails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems must be used on residential jobsites.

Now that it looks like personal fall arrest systems must be used on residential homes, will this have an impact on roof design? Many have argued for permanent anchor points on residential roofs to facilitate not only new construction and remedial work, but those accessing the rooftop for other purposes as well.

This directive seems certain to change the way roofing contractors do their jobs. Will it change the way designers and specifiers do theirs?

OSHA has provided copies of the new compliance directive for review on its website,www.osha.gov/doc/residential fall protection.html.

For more details on the new directive, visitwww.roofingcontractor.com, which has two articles on the upcoming changes and their implications for contractors:

www.roofingcontractor.com/Articles/Article_Rotation/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000001008462

www.roofingcontractor.com/Articles/Article_Rotation/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000001008724