[Extremeclean]

A word of warning  about pole lengts.

I recently bought 2 supposed 18ft lightweight poles from a well known supplier.

My lads had been using universal 18ft ones on domestics and had no problems really but in a rare fit of generosity I thought I would be making life a bit easier for them with lightweight poles. They complained to me that the new ones were harder to use because they didnt reach as high as the new ones. I thought they were being nit-picky but I fully extended the new ones, laid them on the ground and measured them. My nice shiny new 18ft ones are a tad under 17ft long!

I contacted the suppler to be told the 18ft is "reach from hip height" So I suppose they must measure the height from the ground of every customers hips.   

I will be taking it up with the supplier but in the meantime I will always now ask the actual length of a pole.  Maybe it's worth posting this for others who are under the impression that 18ft means 18ft. Or any other length for that.

[cybersye]

yes look out for that one!, some state an "actual height" and a "working height".

[Jeff Brimble]

One way of deciding what pole you need is to measure to the top of the lintel from the ground, vertically. When you stand back to work at a comfortable angle the same pole then becomes slightly shorter.
If you buy a pole it should be actual extended height , anything else is just trying to make your pole look bigger than it actually is and we should all put pressure on any companies to conform.

[Paul Coleman]

A word of warning  about pole lengts.

I recently bought 2 supposed 18ft lightweight poles from a well known supplier.

My lads had been using universal 18ft ones on domestics and had no problems really but in a rare fit of generosity I thought I would be making life a bit easier for them with lightweight poles. They complained to me that the new ones were harder to use because they didnt reach as high as the new ones. I thought they were being nit-picky but I fully extended the new ones, laid them on the ground and measured them. My nice shiny new 18ft ones are a tad under 17ft long!

I contacted the suppler to be told the 18ft is "reach from hip height" So I suppose they must measure the height from the ground of every customers hips.   

I will be taking it up with the supplier but in the meantime I will always now ask the actual length of a pole.  Maybe it's worth posting this for others who are under the impression that 18ft means 18ft. Or any other length for that.

I find this sort of stuff irritating.  A pole length is the length of a pole, NOT the length of a pole plus the length of someones leg.  It's the same in the computer industry.  Athlon quote their processor speeds as Intel equivalents rather than actual clock cycles.  Hard drive manufacturers seem to assume that a gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes rather than the actual 1,024 - just to make their drives appear to have a larger capacity.

[matt]

A word of warning  about pole lengts.

I recently bought 2 supposed 18ft lightweight poles from a well known supplier.

My lads had been using universal 18ft ones on domestics and had no problems really but in a rare fit of generosity I thought I would be making life a bit easier for them with lightweight poles. They complained to me that the new ones were harder to use because they didnt reach as high as the new ones. I thought they were being nit-picky but I fully extended the new ones, laid them on the ground and measured them. My nice shiny new 18ft ones are a tad under 17ft long!

I contacted the suppler to be told the 18ft is "reach from hip height" So I suppose they must measure the height from the ground of every customers hips.   

I will be taking it up with the supplier but in the meantime I will always now ask the actual length of a pole.  Maybe it's worth posting this for others who are under the impression that 18ft means 18ft. Or any other length for that.

I find this sort of stuff irritating.  A pole length is the length of a pole, NOT the length of a pole plus the length of someones leg.  It's the same in the computer industry.  Athlon quote their processor speeds as Intel equivalents rather than actual clock cycles.  Hard drive manufacturers seem to assume that a gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes rather than the actual 1,024 - just to make their drives appear to have a larger capacity.

100% correct, when i buy a pole, i expect it to be the lenght of the pole

hell im 6 ft 3", so i guess i would get a 18 AND 1/2 Ft pole for my money  : :