The Green Book
Fragile Roof Guide
ACR Best Practice Guide
ACR[CP]002:2017 Third edition
“Safe Working on Fragile Roofs or Roofs With Fragile Elements”
Working on fragile roofs is an extremely hazardous activity. Even a simple inspection is highly dangerous without adequate knowledge and planning. This is confirmed by the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) accident statistics. Many of these accidents happened because the people carrying out the work or the inspection were not competent to do so. Consequently, the work was carried out without the necessary planning or management and, often, without suitable equipment.
Working on a fragile roof is not a task to be undertaken lightly.
The hazards coupled with working at height, are exacerbated by some clients who may have had no guidance on how to commission safe work on fragile roofs.
This document is intended to give health and safety advice on how to control the risks involved in working on fragile roofs and is aimed at informing the following:
- Building Owners and Property Managers
- Building Professionals e.g. Building and Estate Surveyors, Architects, Surveyors, Heating and Ventilation Engineers
- Sole traders
- Contractors carrying out construction work
- Maintenance Contractors
- Insurance Inspectors
- Manufacturers / Suppliers
It describes safe practices and procedures to adopt for inspections, refurbishment, repair and replacement of fragile surfaces and recommends acceptable safe techniques to employ to comply with Regulation 9 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.
The third edition of the document is a minor update and contains the following changes:
- minor changes have been made to individual paragraphs to improve clarity or guidance.
- conversion to single column format to aid reading on mobile devices.
- all year reference to Statutory Instruments removed to avoid confusion when regulations change. Note to reader to ensure latest version of regulations to be used.
First published July 2006
Second edition published April 2012
Third edition published December 2017