Rooftop Guardrail Systems Brochure

The edge is where the exposure is, and equipment tends to sit near it

Roof trips are mostly to service equipment, and it is often installed near the edge. This brochure is for facility managers, safety leads and building owners. It walks through OSHA 29 CFR 1910.28(b)(13) for low-slope roofs, which sets the controls allowed inside 6 ft of the edge, between 6 and 15 ft, and beyond 15 ft, including when a designated area with a physical warning line can be used and when it cannot.

Guardrail is the one control that asks nothing of the worker

Harnesses must be worn and anchored and designated areas enforced; a guardrail just stays in place. The brochure covers four Tritech configurations built from one modular, galvanized component system:

• Freestanding counterbalanced guardrail that sits on the membrane with no penetrations
• Metal roof guardrail clamped to the standing seam or profile
• Parapet and wall-mounted rail for tight roofs
• Portable guardrail that moves with the work

It also shows how a modular run is routed around pipes, ductwork, curbs and HVAC units without leaving a gap.

A counterbalanced guardrail is a structure and is engineered as one

Each base acts as a lever through the cantilever arm, so arm length, base count and spacing decide whether the rail holds the 200 lb test load required by 1910.29(b) and stays put in wind. Tritech engineers size every run for the building: wind load by basic wind velocity, exposure category and roof height; layout drawings for post spacing, arms, corners and obstructions; and compliance documentation against 1910.28 and 1910.29 with third-party test data. Tritech has done this work across North America since 1993.