just recently I did a job where I had to go back on the ladder for a few windows that had to have an initial builders style clean, and it is only really when you go back and work off a ladder that you realise just how dangerous ladders are.
Some of the heights and risks I have taken in the past make me wince now when I think about it, but when you are using them all the time you become very blasé about it, how many of you will dangle a leg out when you are 30ft up as a counter balance when you are reaching just that little bit further rather than climbing back down the ladder to move it a few inches...and please don't tell me you never do it or haven't done it!
When you are up the top of a ladder cleaning a 6ft tall window you are on the last but one rung of the ladder, hell, often you can be stood on the very last rung of the ladder, balancing on the balls of your feet, virtually on tiptoe and gripping a bit of window frame between thumb and forefinger with one hand while the other hand is fully stretched out cleaning the top of the window....and that is just one example of high risk (not necessarily reckless risk either).
When we hear of someone dying as a result of falling off a ladder it simply highlights those dangers. But should ladders be banned outright?....of course not! You can't eliminate all risk after all and there are many occasions when using a ladder is the most practical method of working.
Elf & Safety can't simply turn around and ban ladders, there are tens of thousands of people in all manner of trades using them, for us window cleaners there is an alternative in most situations, and that of course is WFP, it doesn't eliminate ladders because there are too many occasions when they are the only reasonable option.
It's no good all you die hard ladder monkeys squawking though! WFP is fast becoming the industry standard for the cleaning of windows at height!! It does a good job (most of the time) and you can't plummet to your death with both feet on the ground! And of course it is also affordable.
There may be other health issues of course, RSI springs to mind and various other strain type injuries and it does carry far greater running costs, you also continue to need trad skills too and it also means a more complex business, not that the cleaning of windows will be any more complex or difficult of course but some ordinary Joe starting out with WFP will not make allowances for the increased running costs and he - or she - will equate the money they turn over to wages just as the majority of window cleaners have always done...a shame that...but there you go...
Viva la WFP!
