Material Delivery and Rooftop Loading SOP

Purpose

Rooftop loading is a structural act carried out by a delivery driver who has never seen the framing under the deck. This procedure fixes, before the truck is scheduled, where the load lands, how it is spread across framing members, who signs for the placement, and under what conditions loading does not happen at all.

Get it wrong and the failures are not subtle. A boom set under a service drop kills somebody. A pile of bundles left where the driver could reach puts a permanent sag in a truss top chord that the shop then re-decks at its own cost. A load dropped on an unprotected driveway or a septic lid turns a clean job into a claim before a single shingle is off the roof.

Scope

Covers delivery and rooftop loading of bundled roofing material, underlayment, and roll goods to steep-slope residential and light-commercial roofs, whether loaded by boom truck, conveyor or by hand.

It does not cover low-slope palletized loading or crane picks onto a deck, which need a lift plan and a qualified rigger. It does not cover tear-off debris handling, and it does not authorize any structural judgement beyond reading drawings that exist - where drawings are absent or the framing is questionable, this procedure routes to the truss manufacturer or an engineer rather than resolving it.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Survey the site before the delivery is scheduled. Walk the approach and record: overhead service drops and their crossings, driveway width and turning room, ground conditions where outriggers will bear, septic lids and leach field, irrigation heads, gas meter, condensers, tree limbs over the setup position. Acceptance: a marked sketch showing the truck position and the reach path. Wrong: booking a boom delivery off a phone photo of the front elevation. Stop rule: no workable setup position clear of overhead lines means no boom delivery - ground stage and carry, or have the utility de-energize or cover the line first. Hazard: keep any boom, conveyor or extension at least 20 ft from an overhead line until the line voltage is confirmed, and no closer than 10 ft for lines rated 50 kV or below once it is, per 29 CFR 1926.1407 and 1926.1408 Table A.

2. Confirm the structure will take the load. Record framing type (rafters or engineered trusses), spacing on center, span, existing layer count, and any visible sag or deflection between members. Pull the truss drawings if they exist; they carry the design live load and the chord lengths this calculation needs. Acceptance: a stated design live load in psf and a stated member spacing, both sourced. Wrong: assuming a number because the house looks ordinary. Stop rule: no drawings plus long-span trusses, a second existing layer, a visible sag, or a heavy-to-light conversion means the loading is confirmed by the truss manufacturer or an engineer before the order is placed, not after. Hazard: while sighting the framing from the attic, stay on members and do not step on the ceiling plane.

3. Write the loading plan and send it with the order. The plan names the slope or slopes to be loaded, the number of stacks, bundles per stack, stack spacing, and the areas that are off limits: skylights and openings, the eave overhang beyond the wall line, any low-slope tie-in, and the midspan of the longest members. Acceptance: a sketch with stack positions marked and a total bundle count. Wrong: "load the back roof," which the driver will interpret as one pile. Stop rule: material does not get ordered without a plan attached, because a plan produced after the truck arrives is a negotiation, not an instruction. Hazard: state the slope on the plan - above roughly 6:12 bundles will not stay put, so those roofs are ground staged and carried, and a plan that says otherwise puts the crew under a sliding load.

4. Protect the property and set the drop zone on delivery day. Plywood the driveway where outriggers and wheels will bear, cover the condenser, flag irrigation heads and the septic lid, and rope or cone an exclusion zone under the full swing of the boom or the run of the conveyor. Acceptance: nobody inside the zone but the driver and the crew lead, hard hats on everyone in it, and the homeowner told to keep children and pets indoors during the lift. Wrong: a zone drawn only under the landing point and not under the travel path. Stop rule: a person or vehicle enters the zone and the lift stops until it is clear. Hazard: never stand or walk under a suspended load or a loaded conveyor run, and keep hands clear of the conveyor's drive and idler pinch points, which take a glove and then a hand.

5. Set fall protection for anyone receiving material on the roof. Anchor a personal fall arrest system to structure - a ridge anchor into rafters or truss top chords, never sheathing alone - for anyone on the roof at 6 ft or more above a lower level, the construction trigger at 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13). Acceptance: every roof-side receiver anchored, lines clear of the landing area, and a hand signal agreed with the driver before the first bundle moves. Wrong: a receiver tied off with a lifeline lying across the spot the boom is aiming for. Stop rule: an unanchored person on the roof stops the lift. Hazard: bundles land hard and skid, so receivers stand upslope of the landing point rather than below it, and the last bundle of a stack is the one that pushes the stack loose.

6. Load flat, across the framing, split between slopes. Bundles lie flat, long axis perpendicular to the framing members so each bundle bears on more than one member, never on edge and never on a single member. Split the total between slopes and break it into spaced stacks rather than one pile, and place stacks toward the ridge and over bearing rather than at the midspan of the longest members. Acceptance: stack count and bundles per stack matching the plan on both slopes. Wrong: a tall pile at the easiest reach point, which is where the boom naturally wants to put it. Stop rule: a stack taller than the plan allows gets broken down before the next one lands. Hazard: a bundle stack on a slope is a stored-energy hazard, so nobody works downslope of a stack that has not been checked for footing, and stacks are never set above an open skylight or a cut-out.

7. Verify placement and count against the plan before the driver leaves. Walk both slopes, count stacks and bundles, and check each stack against the off-limits list. Do the per-member arithmetic on any stack that exceeds the plan: bundles times wrapper weight, divided by the number of members it bears on, compared against that member's live-load allowance from the drawings. Acceptance: counts match, no stack over the plan, and no stack in an off-limits area. Wrong: signing the ticket at the truck window. Stop rule: any stack over the plan is redistributed with the driver still on site, because a stack the crew has to move by hand later costs labor the delivery was supposed to save. Hazard: redistribution means carrying bundles across a slope, so it happens anchored and it does not happen in rain or on a frosted deck.

8. Secure the load and close out. Cover and weight or strap anything staying overnight, confirm nothing sits where wind can lift it into a neighbor's property, and record the placement with photographs of both slopes. Acceptance: the delivery ticket signed only after step 7, the plan marked with actual placement, and a photo set on the job. Wrong: a signed ticket and no photos, which leaves the shop with no record of how the material was left. Stop rule: material that cannot be secured against forecast wind comes back down or does not go up that day. Hazard: covering a stack means walking a slope with a tarp catching wind, so tarps are placed from upslope and never handled at the eave in gusty conditions.

The record this produces

Two documents. The loading plan - a marked sketch carrying stack positions, bundles per stack, the slope, the off-limits areas, the design live load and member spacing with their source, and the truck setup position with line clearances. And the delivery ticket, signed by the crew lead after the placement check, with the actual placement marked on the plan where it differed.

Both attach to the job. The crew lead reads the plan the morning of tear-off. The estimator reads the actual-placement mark when the same supplier delivers to the next house on that street. The office reads both if a claim arrives about a cracked driveway or a sagging ceiling, because the only defensible answer to "who put it there" is a signed plan with photographs.

Worked pass

A 32 square architectural shingle reroof, gable roof, two slopes. Truss drawings on file gave a 20 psf design roof live load, trusses at 24 in on center, top chord length 14 ft. Bundle weight read 78 lb off the wrapper, and at 3 bundles per square the order came to 96 bundles.

Step 1 failed. The only driveway position with reach to the rear slope sat directly under the service drop, and the utility would not schedule a cover in the job window. The stop rule fired: no boom delivery to the rear slope. The plan was rewritten to boom 48 bundles onto the front slope from the street side and ground stage 48 for the rear, carried up by the crew. That decision cost handling hours and it is the reason nobody was working under an energized line.

The plan set 8 stacks of 6 bundles on the front slope, spaced along the upper third. The per-member check, using only the drawing values: a 6-bundle stack weighs 468 lb and, laid flat and perpendicular, bears on 3 top chords, so 156 lb goes to each. Each truss carries a live-load allowance of 20 psf across a 2 ft tributary width over its 14 ft chord, which is 560 lb. A 6-bundle stack sits well inside that.

At step 7 one stack came in at 24 bundles, because the boom operator consolidated two positions to save a swing. That stack weighs 1,872 lb, which over the same 3 top chords is 624 lb each - over the 560 lb allowance before any account is taken of the existing roof still up there. Step 7's stop rule fired: the driver stayed while the crew broke it into 4 stacks of 6 and re-spaced them, and the ticket was signed after. This check treats the stack as bearing only on the members under it and ignores load sharing through the deck, so it runs conservative on purpose; anywhere the number lands close to the allowance, the answer is an engineer, not a judgement call on the roof.

References

• 29 CFR 1926.1407 and 1926.1408, power line safety for equipment operation, including the 20 ft default and the Table A clearances once voltage is confirmed.
• 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13) for the 6 ft residential fall protection trigger; 29 CFR 1926 Subpart M generally.
• The truss manufacturer's sealed drawings for design live load, spacing and chord lengths, or an engineer where no drawings exist.
• The shingle manufacturer's packaging for bundle weight and coverage, read off the wrapper on site rather than from memory.
• See related: roofing-debris-and-nail-sweep-closeout for the property protection that closes out what this procedure sets up.