[Llaaww]

I have been making a living with ladders for a few years now. After a while if you can get your head into it a ladder is a really cool tool. (I like em).

I have spent time hanging off cliff faces for fun, working on big window cleaning jobs is a real treat if you like to get high. trees, cliffs, bridges, planes , helicopters etc I really don't mind getting high. Mostly that is the game. so a ladder is good for people like me.

I have relied on my ladder to get lunch, get beer, get f*gs, get money, an ocasional date, and several regular dates, some chocolate cake, a few good parties, a few good ales, pay the rent, pay the window cleaner, rescue the cat, fix the roof, don't forget the council tax, et cetera

My ladder has been good to me and I will always regard it as a valued addition to my tool box, is it really likely that they will be banned?

I once tied two ladders together with a climbing rope. Both ladders in th top box and then lashed together, half way. (2 X 14  and old) I got to the top and promised myself that If I got down safely I would buy a brand new biggin the next day. next day, off I went and picked up a nice new tripple 15 d\rung alloy thing £200 it took all the cash I had but it paid for itself in a few days.

For me it is a personal piece of kit that I take seriously, I do not want to lose my right to use it legally, any time that I want to use it.

[Blackbushe Windows]

Check HSE website - the concern is not that ladders are unsafe, but that they need to be used with care, and alternatives need to be considered. I have used ladders full time for well over 20 yrs. They are safe if you're careful.

Peter

[Russell Macdonald]

Ladders will not be banned.

I'm 100% Wfp but my ladders came off the roof  4 times today, i could not do my job without them.

Its not the ladders that need banning, its the idiot using them.

Macc

[DASERVICES]

Macc,

It's not the idoits that use them it's the customers with their crazy garden designs that now is a risk. I know a window cleaner who has been cleaning with ladders for years, he was nearly killed on Thursday. He is now laid up in bed and the strange thing I got him into WFP. The problem was he was climbing over a locked gate with his ladders and it went.

I am more determined now not to use ladders where it is not safe, the customer never sees that.

Doug

[Russell Macdonald]

Doug.

I know what you mean, the look on customers faces when you say "i cant do that because", it does make me wonder whats between their ears at times  :.

I suppose it ok when its our neck on the line  .

Macc

[lucymulligan]

i had to turn down a job because the family were never in and to get into the property they wanted me to climb over a fence with all my equiptment ..... i thought i was being a bit of a wuss but now i realise i was being smart......

I have been making a living with ladders for a few years now. After a while if you can get your head into it a ladder is a really cool tool. (I like em).

I have spent time hanging off cliff faces for fun, working on big window cleaning jobs is a real treat if you like to get high. trees, cliffs, bridges, planes , helicopters etc I really don't mind getting high. Mostly that is the game. so a ladder is good for people like me.

I have relied on my ladder to get lunch, get beer, get f*gs, get money, an ocasional shag, and several regular shags, some chocolate cake, a few good parties, a few good ales, pay the rent, pay the window cleaner, rescue the cat, fix the roof, don't forget the council tax, et cetera

My ladder has been good to me and I will always regard it as a valued addition to my tool box, is it really likely that they will be banned?

I once tied two ladders together with a climbing rope. Both ladders in th top box and then lashed together, half way. (2 X 14 and old) I got to the top and promised myself that If I got down safely I would buy a brand new biggin the next day. next day, off I went and picked up a nice new tripple 15 d\rung alloy thing £200 it took all the cash I had but it paid for itself in a few days.

For me it is a personal piece of kit that I take seriously, I do not want to lose my right to use it legally, any time that I want to use it.

ive not quite used it to this extent ....i just use it to reach windows

[D.Salkeld_Ltd]

This debate will allways crop up.

My opinion:

Ladders are one of the most usefull tools a tradesman can have and to ban them would be ridiculouse. From what I understand of HSE they recognise this and don't want to ban ladders, they just want to reduce the accident level with them.

Ladders are like the internet - used properly and in the right hands, a brilliant tool. But used wrongly in the wrong hands a nightmare.

As for me, I've done my time climbing ladders.  Looking at the top of double decker busess whilst cleaning 2nd floor windows   Yes I can remember a time I loved the challenge, but no more

So, I say yes, have fun on your ladders while you enjoy them, but.............

BE CAREFULL!!!!

David

[Ian_Giles]

The bottom line is; If a job can reasonably be done without recourse to ladders, then that is how it should be done.

That is the general direction that H & S are going.

Strip away personal affront at being told what to do by some interfering busybody and it is a perfectly reasonable aim.

No matter how careful you are, working off ladders is inherently dangerous, you only need to make one single error and you can be sat in casualty or worse.

Ladders will never be banned, that is just plain daft, there are just to many occasions when the use of a ladder is completely necessary, so H & S also have guidlines in place for the safe use of ladders.

And remember, this doesn't just affect window cleaners! It is all trades!!

Although the use of ladders will not be banned outright, their use will certanily become increasingly restricted, insurance companies will use it as yet another tricj to wriggle out of paying out on insurance claims, and god help you if you have employees working off ladders, already a couple of the big boys have been hammered in the courts with massive fines.

Where we are concerned, more often than not there is an alternative to using ladders to work off, WFP of course, but the trad window cleaner can also learn to use poles with trad equipment on board, Terry burrows for instance replied to one of my own threads and said that he would do some windows in a photo I had posted (2nd floor) using poles and a back flip.

So WFP isn't the only option to ladders.

Although I'm WFP, my ladders still come out a few times a month for reasons of access.


Ian