Hazards: Falls from height · Ladder slide-out at the base · Contact with overhead power lines · Struck-by dropped tools
Why it matters
Ladders, 29 CFR 1926.1053, were the third most frequently cited OSHA standard in fiscal year 2025 — behind fall protection and hazard communication. OSHA's own Portable Ladder Safety QuickCard opens with the reason: falls from portable ladders are one of the leading causes of occupational fatalities and injuries. Nobody plans to fall off a ladder. They plan to be up there for thirty seconds.
Key points
- Set it at 4 to 1. One foot out at the base for every four feet of working length — that is 1926.1053(b)(5)(i), and it is the difference between a ladder that holds and one that kicks out.
- Three feet above the landing. Side rails have to extend at least 3 ft above the upper landing surface, or the ladder gets secured at the top with a grasping device. You need something to hold while you step off.
- Three points of contact, facing the ladder. Two hands and a foot, or two feet and a hand, body near the middle of the rungs — QuickCard and 1926.1053(b)(20).
- Hands free means hands free. 1926.1053(b)(22): do not carry anything that could make you lose balance. Tool belt, bucket, rope — not an armload.
- Inspect it before you climb it. A competent person inspects periodically and after anything that could affect safe use; you inspect it every single time you pick it up.
- Damaged means tagged and gone. Bent rail, cracked rung, missing shoe, no labels: marked "Do Not Use" and out of service, not leaned behind the connex for the next guy.
- Look up before you pick it up. Overhead power lines first, every time. Aluminum near energized equipment is the wrong ladder.
Do / Don't
Do
- Tie off the top of extension ladders at access points.
- Hoist tools and material up separately.
- Face the ladder going up and coming down.
Don't
- Stand on the top step or the top three rungs of a straight ladder.
- Move or shift a ladder with someone on it.
- Use a closed stepladder as a straight ladder.
Quick site check
- Walk to the two ladders closest to us and check the angle and the 3 ft extension together.
- Every ladder on this job: labels legible, feet intact, no cracked or bent parts?
- Any ladder in service today that somebody already knows is damaged?
Discussion — ask the crew
- Walk the job in your head: where is a ladder set at the wrong angle right now, and who put it there?
- When was the last time someone here pulled a damaged ladder out of service? What happened to it?
- What are we climbing with in our hands that should be going up in a bucket or a hoist line?
- Which access points on this job should have a ladder tied off at the top instead of leaned and hoped for?
Refs: 29 CFR 1926.1053 — Ladders (construction) · 29 CFR 1926.1060 — Training requirements, stairways and ladders · OSHA — Portable Ladder Safety QuickCard · OSHA — Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Standards, FY 2025Sign-in sheet included in the printed version