Great to see such interest
Just want to clear up some issues
Firstly, I very rarely work for contractors
Secondly, my work on commercial, Duty holder, property management companies, is part of good risk management by them, to advise, assist on making work areas safer for window cleaners. *
Thirdly,
My work for the FWC is unpaid, I don’t claim any expenses and all time is out of my pocket **
Insurance
Some of you may have forgotten some years back insurance premiums went through the roof, I was one of many including the FWC that campaigned to get insurance companies to look at the way they underwrite risk liability = The more you can prove your competency and that you work safely the lower we maintain insurance premiums ***= benefit to you ...not me
Effects of an accident
The way the courts will way up if you have done everything you can is “Reasonably practical”
This you can calculate
Picture the scales of justice on the Old Bailey roof
In one scale you place the value of your life
In the other you place the cost, time and trouble of controlling that risk ****
So if it’s going to cost £150 to hire equipment
Your balance out this
Your life against £150
So if you feel your life is worth more than £150 “and please ... before you jump all over £150 it’s AN EXAMPLE figure then don’t access the flat roof from a ladder ...
Some examples that are sadly happening far to often
A WINDOW cleaner who fell from a bay window roof while on his weekly round died accidentally, a jury has decided. Bill Wilson was found on a patio with head injuries after he fell from the roof of a house in Ilkeston in July last year. Derby and South Derbyshire Coroner's Court heard how a neighbor raised the alarm after hearing the 58-year-old calling for help. Paramedics took the father-of-four to the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, where he died while undergoing surgery. Giving evidence, Sharon Caulfield said she returned to her home in Audley Close from Nottingham at around 2.30pm on the day of the incident.
TRIBUTES have been paid to a popular Townhill man who died in a tragic work accident on the eve of his 53rd birthday. James Ferrier, a self employed window cleaner, fell from a ladder while cleaning windows at a first floor flat in Townhill Road, Dunfermline, on Monday morning. The father of four, who was working with his brother Ronnie at the time, was taken by ambulance to Queen Margaret Hospital but passed away around midday. Family members said he was a beloved dad and granddad who lived for his family and will be sadly missed.
You make your choice....
*Can you tell us who decided what constituted 'safer working areas?' Some years ago a customer of mine asked the council to instal a concrete base to make it safer for me to access his upper windows. (I didn't ask him, he took it on himself) Round came the council works department and installed a beautiful flat concrete base - in completely the wrong place
**I don't doubt your motives or integrity, I question their relevance
***But who is qualified to decide competency? Certainly not some faceless official with no practical experience. How many real window cleaners with years of safe working experience are consulted on this?
****Again the question of competency in the 'control' aspect. Why can't the knowledge and experience of dedicated professionals be accepted as valid? Just because some idiot with no common sense and no training manages to slip and fall while accessing a flat roof does not render the rest of us as incapable of performing a perfectly safe and simple operation.
As to your two 'examples that happen too often' - I couldn't agree more that these need to be stopped, it's the way you assume regulations and penalties will be effective methods that I question.
These two men by the evidence of their circumstances were not exercising common sense in their actions, and no plethora of regulations will change that - they were probably not even aware of any regulations and they certainly were not benefitting from good practical safety training. The ONLY way to address this is to publicise the need for good competent ladder training in the way I described in my first post. Window cleaning is by its nature 'beyond the fence' i.e. anyone can buy a ladder and set up in business, and these people are the very ones most at risk because they have no grasp of the dangers, or the way to avoid them. Unfortunately it is the professional, responsible members of the industry who have to bear the burden of restrictive regulations.
The problem is caused by the 'grey' area of amateur window cleaners so clamping down on the professionals is totally counter productive.
Please note I do not necessarily mean that all organised window cleaning companies are professional, or that all 'one man bands' are amateur. Professionalism is in the way they conduct their businesses.