We work 95% residential and virtually all of our work has been done on single story and 2 story homes. This is because we are a rural area and that is really all that there are in our area and for the very limited number of jobs available over 30 feet, it was simply never practical to buy the ladders and equipment needed to do the jobs. The cost of the scaffolding and longer ladders was simply too much to justify the 2 or 3 bids I pass on a year.
Late this summer I did receive a referral of a historic building that wanted us to do copper flashing on a slate roof and steeple/bell tower of the old town hall turned museum. I declined based on the equipment requirements but then got a call back a month later asking us again with a stipulation that we could add extra equipment costs and to please bid. This was based entirely on the fact we are well known in the area for both copper and slate and most of the other roofers will not touch it.
After looking into renting the scaffolding and purchasing a couple of combination ladders that would allow us to do the work safely, I submitted a bid with a reasonable profit margin and an apology for the extra cost and thought little of it until a near immediate call back accepting the bid.
While it became quickly apparent that some of my "roofers" were really not at all interested in working on the steeple and there were no complaints at all about the fall gear on this job, it has become a job that I like to show in our portfolio of past work.