[Philip Hanson]

The Met office has issued severe weather warnings for several areas of the UK :

http://www.metoffice.com/weather/europe/uk/warnings.html

Window cleaners using ladders should take extra care while working at height, as the danger of injury is many times greater in windy conditions. 

Those using poles should also take extra care.  The HSL WFP guidance notes advises against pole use in high winds (more than 25mph).

If you are in doubt about whether it is safe to work or not, then a "better safe than sorry" attitude is probably best.  After all, one days lost working is a small price to pay to avoid a serious injury.

If you have any inside work, I'd say tomorrow would be the day to do it!

Winds in Scotland are currently showing at 40MPH! and Ireland with 30mph

http://www.professionalwindowcleaner.co.uk/weather.html

-Philip

[Ian_Giles]

For me the very heavy winds + rain are the worst of all conditions for window cleaning.
Not because of the  risk angle, I mean because the windows are dirty within a day of you cleaning them.
The gale force winds pick up no end of debris from fields, trees, road and peoples gardens, the rain lashes the walls and windows and muck from the walls will run onto the glass, or rather contaminated rain water will.

For me, most of my bread and butter work are weekly or twice weekly cleans on shops, the weather is mostly irrelevent, they are done so often it makes little difference.
But I feel guilty about monthly domestic accounts If the customer isn't in, and you go back to collect the next day and then glance at your work you can end out cringing inside as you notice that the windows need cleaning once more

Every now and then we have those freak conditions where sands from the Sahara get blown into the upper atmosphere and end out coming down mixed with the rain, everything is dirty then, cars houses the lot
I don't feel guilty collecting after this has happened, I do feel sorry for the customer though, but these are not conditions that can be forecast, you don't know it has happened until everything drys out. Unlike what we are experiencing now.

I use WFP, and I have found that I can work in windy conditions that would stop me in my tracks were I still using my ladders. The higher you go the more difficult it becomes of course, but boy, am I pleased I am no longer climbing ladders

Ian

[AuRavelling79]

In response to higher winds of recent years the beaufort scale has been amended at the top end viz:-

For the area around the Severn bridges.

Force 8 Gale    Force 9 Storm
Force 10 Ladder in tree     Force 11 Ladder and tree in Severn Estuary
Force 12 Window Cleaner in Severn Estuary
Force 13 Car/Van in Severn Estuary Ian Giles stops using waterfed pole
Force 14 Old Severn Bridge (M48) now in Gloucester
Force 15 New Severn Bridge (M4) where old Severn Bridge was originally
Force 16 Windows_chepstow in Paris studying French History first hand

MalcG

[gaza]

very good pmsl