When “Just Get on the Roof” Isn’t That Simple
Not every light install goes exactly as planned — and a job from this season is a good reminder of why safety gear isn’t optional, even on jobs that look routine.
We were setting up on a home where the ladder had to rest against an older porch structure. As our installer climbed the ladder, the porch bowed inward under the added weight — nothing dramatic, just enough give that nobody thought twice about it. But the moment he stepped off the ladder onto the roof, that weight came off the porch all at once. The porch flexed back and sprang the ladder outward, which caught his foot and sent him off the roof edge.
Nobody was hurt. That’s not luck — it’s because professional installers use the proper safety gear and know how to handle a fall if something below them fails instead of them.
It’s worth being blunt about why that matters. A University of Calgary trauma study on Christmas-light-related falls (published in the journal Injury) found that of the patients severely injured enough to need trauma-center care, 95% were men — usually dads doing it themselves — and the injuries weren’t minor: spinal injuries in 43% of cases, and a 5% mortality rate among those hospitalized. It’s not just the roof that needs to hold, either — porches, planters, and aging deck boards can fail quietly under load. This is exactly the kind of job worth leaving to someone who does it for a living.