Taking Over a Building? Your Roof Safety Checklist

Taking responsibility for a new building can mean inheriting years of roof safety equipment, inspection records and maintenance decisions made by other people.

There may be safety lines, anchor points, guardrails, fixed ladders, walkways and other access systems already installed. Some may have clear records and current certification. Others may have been altered over time or have little or no documentation.

For facilities and estates teams, the difficulty is often knowing exactly what has been inherited.

What equipment is on the roof? When was it last inspected? Are there outstanding defects? Does it still suit the way contractors use the roof today?

Those questions can be difficult to answer from handover files alone.

This roof safety checklist covers the main areas to review when taking responsibility for a building, site or property portfolio.

Establish what roof safety equipment is actually there

Before you can manage roof safety properly, you need a clear picture of the equipment already installed.

Asset registers may be incomplete or out of date, systems may have been replaced without the records being updated, and equipment may have been added by different contractors over many years.

Depending on the building, common equipment examples include:

• Horizontal and vertical safety lines
• Anchor points, eyebolts and other fall arrest or fall restraint anchor systems
• Fixed or freestanding guardrails and other edge protection
• Fixed access ladders, stairs and roof access hatches
• Roof walkways, stepovers, rooflight protection and fragile-roof protection
• Davit systems, sockets and rope-access or abseil anchors

This is not an exhaustive list. Other permanent roof access, edge protection or personal fall protection equipment may also be present.

The aim is to establish what is present, where it is located and what each system is intended to do.

If the existing records do not give you that picture, a roof safety survey can fill in the gaps by identifying the assets on site, comparing them with the available documentation and flagging anything that needs further investigation. This is something Altus carries out for individual buildings and wider property portfolios.

That gives facilities teams a reliable starting point for managing inspection, maintenance and any remedial work that follows.

Confirm what has been inspected and what still needs attention

Once the equipment has been identified, the next step is to establish its inspection status and whether previous issues remain unresolved.

For each asset, you need to know:

• When it was last inspected
• What the inspection found
• When the next inspection is due
• Whether defects were recorded
• Whether remedial work was recommended
• Whether that work was completed

An inspection may have taken place, but the accompanying report could contain defects or recommendations that were never followed through. Remedial work may have been quoted and never approved, or responsibility for the building may have changed before it was completed.

Inspection requirements also vary between different types of roof safety equipment. The appropriate frequency can depend on the system, how it is used, relevant standards, manufacturer guidance and the conditions in which it is installed.

Under the Work at Height Regulations 2005, equipment used for work at height must be appropriately inspected and maintained. Facilities managers and building owners can also have duties where they control work at height or appoint contractors to carry it out.

The important thing is to establish which assets are current, which require inspection and whether any remedial actions remain outstanding.

Find out what roof safety documentation exists

Once you know what equipment is installed, establish what documentation you have for each system.

There is no single certificate or technical file that covers every type of roof safety equipment. What you should expect to find depends on the system.

For personal fall protection anchor systems covered by BS 7883:2019, one of the key records is the System Technical File. This is intended to remain with the system throughout its life and provides information that can be important during future inspection, maintenance or alteration, including the system design and layout, structural fixing details, calculations and information about hidden elements.

For other roof access and collective protection systems, such as guardrails, fixed ladders and walkways, the records you would expect to find will depend on the type of system, how it was installed, the manufacturer and the applicable standards. The examples below are therefore indicative rather than exhaustive:

• Technical or as-built drawings and system layouts
• Manufacturer and product information
• Installation or commissioning records
• O&M and maintenance information
• Inspection and testing certificates
• Previous repair or alteration records

Older buildings rarely have a perfect set of records. Systems may also have been installed at different times, by different contractors and to different standards, so the paperwork available for one asset may look very different from that available for another.

The objective is to establish what information should exist, what you actually have and where the gaps are.

If that sounds like a lot to untangle, Altus can do this for you. We can survey the roof, identify the systems in place, review the available documentation and highlight what is missing, out of date or needs further investigation.

What if the roof safety and fall protection paperwork is missing?

Missing paperwork is a problem, but it does not automatically mean every system on the roof has to be replaced.

The next step is to establish what can be identified from the equipment itself, the records that are available and an inspection of the installation.

Where the original installer is unknown or no longer involved, the system can still be assessed by a competent specialist. Altus regularly inspects existing fall protection equipment installed by other providers, helping to establish what is present, its current condition and whether further testing, remedial work or replacement is required.

For facilities teams taking over a poorly documented building, this can turn a collection of unknown assets into a clear record of what is there and what needs attention.

Check whether the roof has changed since the systems were installed

A fall protection system may still be in good condition even though the roof around it has changed considerably.

Solar PV, HVAC systems, extract equipment, communications equipment and pipework may all have been added since the original access and fall protection systems were designed.

Those changes can affect where contractors need to go and how they move around the roof.

A safety line may originally have provided access to a particular area or piece of equipment. If something new has since been installed outside that protected area, the existing system may no longer provide suitable access.

Solar panels are a common example. They can alter walking routes, restrict access to existing systems and create maintenance requirements in areas that previously needed little attention.

The way a building is maintained can change too. An area that was rarely accessed when the original system was installed may now need regular visits.

An inspection should therefore consider more than the physical condition of the equipment. The overall roof access and fall protection arrangements also need to suit the work being carried out today.

Review the complete route onto and across the roof

Roof safety starts before somebody reaches the equipment they have come to maintain.

Consider the route from the point of access to the place where the work happens.

Potential issues include:

• Unsafe roof access
• Unprotected edges
• Changes in level
• Fragile roof coverings or unprotected rooflights
• Missing or unsuitable walkways
• Obstructions to established access routes
• Difficult transitions from ladders onto roof areas

A perfectly serviceable anchor point beside a piece of equipment does little to address an unsafe route to reach it.

The Work at Height Regulations follow a hierarchy of control. Where reasonably practicable, work at height should be avoided. Where it cannot be avoided, falls should be prevented before relying on measures that reduce the consequences of a fall.

In some locations, collective protection such as guardrails, walkways or improved access may therefore be more appropriate than relying on personal fall protection.

The route needs to be considered as a whole rather than treating each asset in isolation.

Understand how contractors actually use the roof

Drawings and asset records only tell you part of the story. It is also worth understanding what contractors actually do when they access the roof.

That could include HVAC maintenance, gutter clearance, roof repairs, solar panel maintenance, lightning protection inspection, window cleaning or façade maintenance.

Look at where contractors need to go, how often they need access and whether the existing protected routes allow them to carry out the work safely.

This can expose issues that are easy to miss on a plan. A maintenance engineer may need to step outside a protected route to reach a filter or access panel. Equipment may need servicing from a side that was not considered when the fall protection was originally designed.

Where facilities managers or building owners control work at height or appoint contractors to carry it out, they can have duties under the Work at Height Regulations 2005 to ensure those risks are properly managed.

Where personal fall protection is used, the wider arrangements also matter, including appropriate PPE, competent users and suitable rescue planning.

Understanding how the roof is actually used helps identify gaps between the protection provided and the work people are expected to carry out.

Bring everything into one managed roof inspection programme

Once the roof safety assets have been identified and their condition established, the next step is to keep that information current.

For each asset, you should be able to see:

• What it is and where it is located
• Its asset reference and system type, where known
• Last inspection date and current status
• Outstanding remedial work
• Next inspection due date
• Associated reports and certificates

For facilities teams responsible for several buildings, this becomes particularly valuable.

Instead of discovering an overdue inspection when a contractor arrives to carry out maintenance, upcoming inspections can be planned and outstanding actions dealt with before they affect access to the roof.

Where Altus is carrying out ongoing testing and inspection, assets can be managed as part of a planned programme across a single building or wider estate, with records and actions kept up to date as systems are revisited.

It also makes future handovers easier. The next person taking responsibility for the building inherits a clear inspection history and current asset information rather than having to reconstruct it from old reports and files.

How Altus can help when you take over roof safety on your building

If you have inherited a building with roof access or fall protection equipment and the records are incomplete, out of date or unclear, Altus can help establish the current position.

Depending on the site, this can include:

• Identifying and recording existing roof access and fall protection assets
• Testing and inspecting systems, including equipment installed by other providers
• Reviewing available records and documentation
• Identifying defects, overdue inspections and outstanding remedial work
• Assessing whether existing systems still suit how the roof is used
• Carrying out repairs, alterations or replacement where required
• Bringing assets into an ongoing inspection programme

The result is a clear picture of what is on the building, its current condition and what needs attention.

Altus provides both Testing & Inspection and Installation services, so repairs, alterations or replacement identified during the process can be carried through without having to start again with another contractor.

If you are taking responsibility for a building, site or property portfolio and need to understand the roof safety systems you have inherited, contact Altus Safety or call 0330 113 0870.