We Learned Safety Where Mistakes Kill You Immediately

Before Dads Roofing existed, Kory and Johnny Peters worked as Red Seal Journeyman Boilermakers in the Alberta oil sands. Safety culture in that world is absolute. You do not walk past a piece of rebar without a cap on it. You do not carry a wrench without a lanyard. You do not step onto a platform without clipping in. If you skip a step, you get sent home — or worse, you do not go home at all.

When we started roofing in the Fraser Valley in 2021, we brought every single one of those habits with us. Some other roofers thought we were overkill. Our speakers are tied off. Our water bottles are tied off. Every tool on the roof has a lanyard because a dropped hammer from two stories is a weapon. We do not care how it looks. We care that after 500+ completed roofs, nobody on our crew has been seriously hurt.

The Most Dangerous Sixty Seconds of Any Roofing Job

The moment that keeps us sharp is the initial setup. You are climbing onto a roof that has no anchor installed yet. There is no fall protection for those first minutes. The first person up moves slowly, stays on the low side of the slope, and drives a roof anchor directly into a truss — not into sheathing, which can pull out. Nobody else sets foot on that roof until the anchor is set, a lanyard is clipped, and the system is tested with body weight.

That discipline comes straight from oil field protocol. In the sands, you would never climb a vessel without an anchor point waiting for you at the top. Roofing does not always have that luxury, so we built our own procedure: first person up, anchor in, test it, then everybody else follows clipped in.

What Oil Field Safety Looks Like on a Fraser Valley Roof

Every single job. No exceptions. No shortcuts.

• Roof anchors into trusses — not sheathing, not fascia board. Into the structural framing.
• Full-body harnesses with shock-absorbing lanyards — sized and inspected before every use
• Tool lanyards on everything — hammers, nail guns, pry bars, chalk lines, even speakers and water bottles
• Ladder tie-offs at the eave — the ladder does not move, slide, or kick out
• Morning safety briefings — we walk through the specific hazards of that specific roof before anyone climbs
• Buddy system always — nobody works alone on a roof, ever
• Immediate stop-work authority — any crew member can shut the job down for any safety concern, no questions asked

The Numbers That Keep Us Honest

That last statistic is the one we think about every morning. Not because we are proud — because we know that complacency is what turns it into a different number. The oil sands taught us that. You never let a clean safety record make you casual. You let it make you more careful, because you have more to protect.

When We Will Not Work

We lose money every time we call a rain day. We do it anyway.

• Rain or wet surfaces — shingles turn into a slip-and-slide. The Fraser Valley has plenty of these days.
• Frost or ice — common on early morning roofs in Agassiz from October through March
• Sustained winds above 25 mph — sheet material becomes a sail, and balance is compromised
• Lightning within 10 miles — a roof is the highest point. We are not interested in being a conductor.
• Extreme heat above 35 degrees Celsius — roof surface temps can hit 70+ degrees. Heat stroke can set in within 15 minutes.
• Any crew member feeling unwell — a dizzy roofer is a dead roofer. Go home, come back healthy.

A Word to Homeowners Thinking About DIY

We get it. Roofing is expensive, and you want to save money. But here is what we have seen in our years doing this work: the people who get hurt worst are not reckless. They are careful, capable people who simply did not understand how fast a roof can go wrong. A patch of morning dew you did not notice. A gust of wind you did not expect. A board that looked solid but was not.

The $3,000 to $5,000 you save doing it yourself is not worth your life. It is not worth a spinal cord injury. It is not worth explaining to your kids why Dad cannot walk anymore. Call us at (778) 539-6917 for a free inspection. Let the people with the harnesses, the anchors, and the oil field training handle it.

Deep Dives: Safety Topics

Below you will find detailed guides on every major safety category we deal with on Fraser Valley roofs. Each one is written from real experience — not textbook theory, but lessons from hundreds of jobs in Agassiz, Chilliwack, Harrison, Hope, and everywhere in between.