[Trevor Knight]

Trevor,
"I live in a small house but my windows look out onto a very large world"    Chinese proverb.

[Chris A]

Not as high as Pat and not window cleaning

[Chris A]

Just found a window cleaning pic

[Pat Purcell]

Hey Chris ,if the photo appears, this was the first big one I ever did, theres a tv show called Boston legal this is the building they show at the beginning

[Chris A]

Pat , I don't watch telly very much mate but the football stadium in the background seems to get a lot of airtime on tv over here.

[Pat Purcell]

Chris Im not well up on my stadiums which one is that, Judging by all the photos Ive seen I take it that helmets are mandatory over there

[JM123]

he'd be nuts not to be wearing one!!

[Pat Purcell]

JM123 ive been doing hi-rise 17 years, never once in that time have i worn a helmet or never have i seen somebody wear one
And I have never heard of an accident that would have been mitigated by wearing one
If thats the rule then you wear one that i agree with but  i dont see why you would be nuts not to

[Chris A]

Pat, It's Old Trafford in the background (it's a s*^t hole)
Helmets are compulsory whilst abseiling, It's one of those things that you get used to, if for any reason you don't have to wear a helmet for example most cradle work it just doesn't feel right so we wear our helmets doing cradle work as well. I must admit that i've not heard of an accident due to not wearing a helmet but I suppose theres always a chance of getting a crack to the head, like I said once you're used to wearing one it becomes second nature. We got the sealing job in the pic after doing a builders clean on all the windows and noticing that many windows had not been sealed and seeing as though the scaffold had been taken down we got the job, £££££££'s 
The buildings look pretty impresive in Boston, with the kit we use though it is only rated for a descent of 100 metres max, don't you find that there is too much bouncing about at the bottom of a long drop, especially when it's raining. I've made an idiot out of myself a few times while trying to look cool and then ending up on my arse in front of a load of women
                                         Chris

[Pat Purcell]

Chris this is just an educated guess but im going to say the rope stretches between 1 ft and 2ft per hundred on a long drop, Yeah 300 ft is the legal limit here too but like your ladder law if there is no viable alternative then abseiling is allowed
This usually hapens on a building that has a roof top cradle which has a safety problm or just has not been signed off on by OSHA( our h&s)
i dont think I would have a problem wearing a helmet but with the amount of twisting and turning that goes on have you ever dropped it
as far as making an idiot out of myself trying to look cool been there done that ,I dont know how many times ive opened the rope and sailed down the last 50 ft or so only  to land squarely on the cone i had set up to keep people out from under me

[Chris A]

The ropes we use stretch around 5%, our helmets have a pretty  secure chinstrap so theres no danger of them falling off.

[Pat Purcell]

the ropes we use are SKY Genie ropes which have a static kermantel core and are 1/2 inch, I guess it might be 5ft in a hundred its been a while since I did a really tall building, Have a nice Christmas

[Chris A]

Our ropes are 11mm semi static (about 1/2 inch i think) Do you use a different descender for longer drops? Have a nice Christmas mate.
                                               Chris

[Pat Purcell]

no, chris we stick with the same one , its old fashioned but iTs what im comfortable with,everybody raves about the rack system and I believ it to be a better system but if it aint broke and all that

[Chris A]

Pat, over here not many people have heard of the rack or genie, I've used the rack when working in Canada and didn't like it. The 'STOP' or 'ID' made by Petzl are the most common descenders over here as they are very user friendly and will stop or slow down the descent if the worker lets go of the rope completley, there is also a back up device, usually a shunt or a new one called the ASAP, all made by Petzl. Here is a pic of our set up, it's not very clear so I will try and find a better one after I've been for my christmas dinner