[Moderator David@stives]

I have been looking at new poles lately, with a view to replacing all my old ones, and i am getting really annoyed and fed up with mftrs selling poles eg 40 ft but the actual pole is only 36 feet, unless you spot it in the small print you could get caught short so to speak.

Why have they all got pole paranoia and scared to state the actual lengths of there pole.

We all know how high we can reach with a pole, give us some credit for not being thick.

I think the only honest poles out there are Extell poles, I thought my 40 ft was 40ft until i got my tape measure out , guess what 4 ft short.

Come on suppliers sort this out, just sell us the right lengths, if your pole is only 20 ft sell it as 20 ft not as a 24 ft pole.

Rant over 

Dave

[Mr H]

Hear Hear..!!!!!

I've often wondered why they do at to.....

The same pole will "reach" a different height depending on who is using it and how high they can actually reach.....


Regards
Mr H

[Londoner]

They used to do the same with scaffolding towers. I bought a 20ft tower but it was only 14ft high so I had to buy two extra lifts.
When I queried it they said 20ft was the working height.

[Ravensford]

Dave,

by the same token it would be prudent to state not only their actual fully extended length but their actual closed length as well.

Some time ago I bought a three section '6 ft' pole that turned out to be well over 7ft. My poles are stored inside the van. Even if I was prepared to go through the hassle of removing & re-attaching the brush head every time I used it & turning down the angle adapter it was still far too long to close the van door.

When I mentioned this to the supplier they asked if I could pay the return postage!!! Needless to say I haven't used them since.

When ordering since I ask for the extended & closed lengths plus the weight to avoid the same situation.

Regards,

Dave

[Londoner]

Yes thats a good point. You buy poles to fit in your van if they don't fit you have a problem.

[Moderator David@stives]

I phoned 2 suppliers and I asked them what the actual length of there poles were and was greeted with a reply "It reaces 60 ft"  What is the actual length " well it has six  8ft sections and "  hang on what length is the pole.  "I will get someone to measure one and phone you back"

Guess what no return phone call

This was actually a mfr which makes poles, you dont mind if it is a supplier, they are usually more forthcoming with the sizes.

Had a similar phone call twice.

Dave

[Nathanael Jones]

This is something that really bugs me too. I like the way Gardiers advertise their poles,... they give you the "working height" so you can make a comparison with the competitors, but they also give you the actual length too. I just wish other suppliers did the same!

[TennetClean]

The problem is... its just like internet providers and connection speed.

They always say speed "from 12mb" etc when actually its usually more like 3 mb, with a theoretical 12mb possible if none of the other 50 users are using the same connection at the same time.

If a provider was to be truthful and say connection speed was 3mb then it would look bad in comparison to the other providers, and therefore they'd put themselves at a disadvantage.  Unless they ALL agreed to do it it will never be in the interest of the supplier.

Same with poles.  If one supplier starts to be truthful about it, it will put it at a disadvantage compared to the others that dont - even though the poles may be the same length.

So unless they all agree to do it (which I dont see happening anytime soon) they wont make themselves look bad for no good reason.

CLosed length though, that would be good for us to know.

[Moderator David@stives]

I would deal more with those who gave a more honest assessments of there poles.

There is one pole which tries to compete in the 60 ft market, they say it is a 56 ft pole so you would think "yes near enough"
But its real length is approx 52 ft, this is wher you have to really watch what you are buying.

Does anyone want to by my 1ft pole it can reach 9ft6in  a bit more if you stand on your tip toes.
I only want £60 for it.

Dave

[Alex Gardiner]

This is something that has always annoyed us as well.  When I buy a pole I want to know its length which is why we have always advertised the actual length of our poles.  On a few of our poles we also supply the reach so that others can compare the reach with competitors poles.  You may notice on our website statistics that the actual length is usually quoted down to the nearest inch.  This is because we actually get a tape measure out, extend the pole and measure it.

As a help to the closed length, here is a picture from our website:

[D.Salkeld_Ltd]

Hi All,

Lovely Day : :

Mmmm......."Working Height" : :

Now we all know...if we're honest :..that your standard 18' pole (3x6' sections) will reach;  The length of the pole + the height of the user + the length of the users arms .  So an 18' pole with me using could reach 18' + 6' + 2'6".  That's it's MAXIMUM reach (and you shouldn't do that at all really : :).  So, if the suppliers sell it as a 26.5' reach pole they're out of order.

My opinion is poles should be sold on ACTUAL LENGTH.  It's up to US users to decide how far we can reach with it.

David

[Paul Coleman]

I have been looking at new poles lately, with a view to replacing all my old ones, and i am getting really annoyed and fed up with mftrs selling poles eg 40 ft but the actual pole is only 36 feet, unless you spot it in the small print you could get caught short so to speak.

Why have they all got pole paranoia and scared to state the actual lengths of there pole.

We all know how high we can reach with a pole, give us some credit for not being thick.

I think the only honest poles out there are Extell poles, I thought my 40 ft was 40ft until i got my tape measure out , guess what 4 ft short.

Come on suppliers sort this out, just sell us the right lengths, if your pole is only 20 ft sell it as 20 ft not as a 24 ft pole.

Rant over 

Dave

It irritates me too Dave.  Especially as there is no consistency when the extra bit allowed for reach varies between 3ft and 5ft.  I'm assuming this depends on the pole weight and indeed, a reasonable working height for a heavier pole is 3ft from the ground whereas a very light carbon pole can be held at shoulder height for a while.  I must say that I am not targetting any particular manufacturer with this complaint but it seems that as soon as one breaks ranks to try and make their pole sound longer, the rest have to follow suit in order to compete.  Some manufacturers do make it clearer than others about which is the pole length and which is the "reach" length - notably Alex Gardiner always seems to clarify the difference.  However, I do wish there was no need for any of this nonsense.  The length of a pole is if it is assembled/extended, laying along the ground, and measured with a measuring tape.  Funny how you don't see any manufacturers "shortening" their poles by quoting the "top of window" height which is less than the pole length due to the angle.  We seem to get this throughout industry.  A few years ago somebody suddenly decided that a hard drive capacity should be measured by assuming that there were 1,000 megabytes in a gigabyte (there are actually 1,024) thus making hard drives sound larger than they are.  Also, athlon (the computer processor manufacturer) started giving its processors names and number that implied that it went through more clock cycles per second than it actually does.  Even places like McDonalds have got in on the act by selling drinks that are either "large" or "medium" (no "small" please note).  To me, the term medium in this context means half way so it should be used to describe a mid range size, not the smallest.
I feel that there really is a case for Trading Standards to get in on the act with all these types of things.  I personally find them grossly irritating.  It's not so much the misdescription that bugs me as the feeling that I am being taken for a mug.
I've restricted myself to acceptable wording on this as to write what I really think would possibly get the post deleted.  Apart from that, there are plenty of more important things to get annoyed about but it must be greatly annoying when you spend hundreds of pounds on something only to find it won't do the job because it's shorter than expected.  Could always stand on a pair of steps I suppose (I actually did this once when a pole was a couple of feet shy of the target but that wasn't due to the description.  I was just too tight to buy a longer pole :-)   ) .

[Paul Coleman]

The problem is... its just like internet providers and connection speed.

They always say speed "from 12mb" etc when actually its usually more like 3 mb, with a theoretical 12mb possible if none of the other 50 users are using the same connection at the same time.

If a provider was to be truthful and say connection speed was 3mb then it would look bad in comparison to the other providers, and therefore they'd put themselves at a disadvantage.  Unless they ALL agreed to do it it will never be in the interest of the supplier.

Same with poles.  If one supplier starts to be truthful about it, it will put it at a disadvantage compared to the others that dont - even though the poles may be the same length.

So unless they all agree to do it (which I dont see happening anytime soon) they wont make themselves look bad for no good reason.

CLosed length though, that would be good for us to know.

My prices are "from" £10   

[[GQC] Tim]

It was AMD not Ahtlon, Ahtlon was the CPU family name.

But yea, that was funny....we probably would have done the same in their position tho (in AMD's case). Anyone knows if a quarter pounder is really a quarter pounder? Or is the US pounds?

This is one of the reasons I like Gardiners.

[Paul Coleman]

It was AMD not Ahtlon, Ahtlon was the CPU family name.

But yea, that was funny....we probably would have done the same in their position tho (in AMD's case). Anyone knows if a quarter pounder is really a quarter pounder? Or is the US pounds?

This is one of the reasons I like Gardiners.

Quite right.  Athlon was just one of AMD's processors.  Quarter pounder probably refers to the meat weight when it's still attached to a live animal     .  Also, we get the same things with RO production figures with GPD.  GPD figures seem to be based on very high mains pressure (or booster pump) with water at an optimum temperature, AND measured in (smaller) American gallons too.  I'm surprised the Americans haven't adopted the metric millilitres just to make it sound more.

[[GQC] Tim]

haha, or mililiter (ml)

1135623.5410384121ml!

[Moderator David@stives]

Say you have a 40ft reach pole actual pole length is 36 ft, now assuming the 1 in 4 rule applies the same as ladders for getting the right angle for the window.

The theorum of pythagarus says you would need a longer pole than 36 ft to reach 40ft

[Paul Coleman]

Say you have a 40ft reach pole actual pole length is 36 ft, now assuming the 1 in 4 rule applies the same as ladders for getting the right angle for the window.

The theorum of pythagarus says you would need a longer pole than 36 ft to reach 40ft

The height squared plus the distance along the ground squared.  find the square root of the resulting answer and that's the distance along the diagonal.  Something like that anyway.

[[GQC] Tim]

When I was at school I'd never thought I'd use that to calculate water fed pole angles.

[Paul Coleman]

When I was at school I'd never thought I'd use that to calculate water fed pole angles.

Weird number bases also seemed to be irrelevant too.  Came in handy much later though with bits, bytes, binary, hexadecimal and machine code with the very early home computers.  It's all done for us these days though so I didn't need to bother with it for very long.

[SherwoodCleaningSe]

I think that the manufacturers would do better if they put down the actual length, and then the hoped for reach.  I was surprised when I found out that my old unusable 30ft universal was shorter than my new hybrid 28ft.

Now we all know...if we're honest :..that your standard 18' pole (3x6' sections) will reach;  The length of the pole + the height of the user + the length of the users arms .  So an 18' pole with me using could reach 18' + 6' + 2'6".  That's it's MAXIMUM reach (and you shouldn't do that at all really : :).  So, if the suppliers sell it as a 26.5' reach pole they're out of order.

My opinion is poles should be sold on ACTUAL LENGTH.  It's up to US users to decide how far we can reach with it.

David

What about the size of your head?   

Simon.

[stuart@skypole]

I agree with what you say,

thats why i have detailed every poles spec on the website.

I know that a couple of years ago we ordered a pole for a job that we had when the guys got there the pole was a whole floor short .

I know it can make things awkward.

regards, Stuart

www.skypolewfp.com

[Moderator David@stives]

The square of the hypotones (whatever) on a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the other 2 sides.

so a triangle with the lengths at the right angle being 3 and 4 , would be 3 times 3= 9 and 4times 4 = 16 , add them together you get 25 , the square of 25 being 5 so the length on the hypotones = 5

[Paul Coleman]

The square of the hypotones (whatever) on a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the other 2 sides.

so a triangle with the lengths at the right angle being 3 and 4 , would be 3 times 3= 9 and 4times 4 = 16 , add them together you get 25 , the square of 25 being 5 so the length on the hypotones = 5

That's the one Dave except  the square ROOT of 25 is 5 rather than the square.  Being very accurate obviously isn't necessary when it comes to pole lengths as it's just a near enough measurement that's needed.  It is useful to know what you have said though if the pole length might be a bit tight.

[Paul Coleman]

I think that the manufacturers would do better if they put down the actual length, and then the hoped for reach.  I was surprised when I found out that my old unusable 30ft universal was shorter than my new hybrid 28ft.

Now we all know...if we're honest :..that your standard 18' pole (3x6' sections) will reach;  The length of the pole + the height of the user + the length of the users arms .  So an 18' pole with me using could reach 18' + 6' + 2'6".  That's it's MAXIMUM reach (and you shouldn't do that at all really : :).  So, if the suppliers sell it as a 26.5' reach pole they're out of order.

My opinion is poles should be sold on ACTUAL LENGTH.  It's up to US users to decide how far we can reach with it.

David

What about the size of your head?   

Simon.

Lucky I don't wear a hat, isn't it?   

[Moderator David@stives]

So if you had a window which was 16 ft high , stood directly under the window you would need a 12 foot pole 12 ft +4 ft reach, but in reality you had to stand 9 ft away from the building you would need a 14.35 ft pole and not a 12 ft to reach the window.

because in efect you would be 18.35ft from the window.

[TennetClean]

dave I dont think thats quite right

the 1 in 4 ladder rule only applies because this is safe angle to stand on.  We dont satnd on wfp, so they can be used at a steeper angle.

[Moderator David@stives]

Tennent the reality is we stand further away than we used to with ladders so we can see what we are doing and get a good angle on the window with the brush.

I wasnt implying it was for safety wise, just a rule of thumb for the angle

[Paul Coleman]

So if you had a window which was 16 ft high , stood directly under the window you would need a 12 foot pole 12 ft +4 ft reach, but in reality you had to stand 9 ft away from the building you would need a 14.35 ft pole and not a 12 ft to reach the window.

because in efect you would be 18.35ft from the window.

Well, roughly speaking, 16x16 = 256. 9x9=81.  256+81=337.  Square root of 337 is between 18 and 19 so I suppose 14.35 ft would just about do it if held a bit above hip high (I could rest it on my fat belly)     .  Mind you, as you go up to higher windows, you wouldn't stand so far from the building (proportionately speaking) as the weight on the end of the pole would get more and you might need to hold it about 3ft high instead of 4.

[dai]

My PC monitor is 21" wide, but only if I have it on a 45 degree angle.
Those trigonometrical ratios can work in your favour too, that's why you can cover a 10ft high pane of glass top to bottom, just by dropping and raising your arms, and the further back you stand the less up and down movement you need.
Makes you wonder how WFP manufacturers measure their appendages. Dai

[Pj]

I thought I'd get this up again.

Reach & Wash is a phrase we hear, but as Dave says, "What is all this Reach?"

It should be Pole & Wash, or Brush & Wash, or Scrub & Rinse, or Brush & Rinse, or ............
Anything but REACH & Wash because we don't want to be reaching wth a long heavy pole, it defeats the object.

By the way, it's HYPOTENUSE