A roofing toe board is one of the most basic pieces of

safety equipment Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, elec ...

roofer A roofer, roof mechanic, or roofing contractor is a tradesperson who specializes in roof construction. Roofers replace, repair, and install the roofs of buildings, using a variety of materials, including shingles, bitumen, and metal. Roofin ...

can use. A toe board is a long piece of 2 inch x 4 inch (a 2x4) wood nailed horizontally along a

roof A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temper ...

in various places. Most roofers work in a variety of

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

conditions, sometimes severe

heat In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...

, and resist wearing an apparatus such as a safety harness. As a result of needing both an uncumbered work environment and the need to stay as cool as possible, roofers prefer the toe board due to its freeness of movement. If an accident happens and a roofer loses his/her footing, the 2x4 would stop the roofer from sliding down and/or off the roof. More deaths occur in falls than for any other reason in the

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

profession. More generally, a toe board is a small vertical barrier attached to a raised floor or raised platform. A toe board is like a tiny wall - usually between 4 and 12 inches - whose purpose is to prevent objects or people from falling over, or rolling over, the side of a raised platform, such as preventing a screwdriver dropped on the floor of elevated construction scaffolding from rolling off the side onto people or objects below.

References

{{reflist Construction equipment