Rog,
Your arguement that as you don't have WFP, then ladders are the safe and only option doesn't hold water.
Brett,
I generally agree with you, but I would qualify slightly the bit about using ladder for flat roofs, getting over walls, fences, gates and so on....
You aren't working off ladders, you are merely using them for necessary access, and there is no other option but to use them....mind you, you would have your pole, so you could always try and pole-vault over that wall or onto that flat roof!
Ladders or WFP will of course be discussed often on here and other forums, and the arguements will oft be repeated, no one will truly nail it one way or the other.
Problems with ladder use will crop up with insurance claims, and even the domestic cleaner is going to have to get some generic method statements and risk assessments in place, lack of those may well affect claims too.
As time passes, greater and greater pressure will come to bear on ladder users to change.
How much time will pass before you are left with no option is a moot point, but come it will.
Rog keeps carping on about spots, it rarely happens if you do your job properly.
He could also point out that the shop his missus works at has complained about spots on the windows that I HAVE CLEANED!!
He'd be right too, but the insides hadn't been cleaned for more than 3 years (They've done a sh*te job of doing it themselves now too :
)
The windows are of very, very old varnished hardwood; they too haven't been re-varnished for a great many years, so I know that spots are a likelihood, but the overall finish was better than doing it trad.
I'm actually cleaning those windows in an hour or so time, attention to detail will be paid!
But I am pretty sure I'll have to squeegee and detail the 50 or so panes.
The point I am so convolutedly making is that you know which windows are likely to leave spots, and when you do, you work accordingly.
I've got away with this one for 18 months because the insides were in such a grimy state you couldn't see any spots.
I also do the two shops either side, and they come up absolutely immaculate.
WFP won't ever replace trad, won't completely replace the ladder either, but in a couple of years you'll only be using ladders for access or the occasional window that cannot be done any other way.
So plan for it, at some point in the near future, to continue cleaning windows you'll have to change.
If all you are doing is priming your customers for the inevitable then do so, it might be 5 years until you go WFP, but if you spend those 5 years telling your customers that WFP is cr
ap, then you are really going to have an uphill struggle in front of you.
Play the long game dudes.
Ian
