Evening all,

Anyone else come across window cleaners abseiling from structural fixings such as roof plant plints?! I'm having one of those weeks this week!

Had a presentation at east dist / mids branch a while back and apparently its far safer than other methods.

Badger

Provided the anchor point is strong enough (12 to 15kN breaking strength, depending on their rigging) then it's fine. A 40ft I-beam is far more reliable than an eyebolt in a brick, but equally I've seen people with no common sense rigging off stuff that patently won't support a fall. Low-grade workers are the most likely to make mistakes, as they tend to have nobody on site with engineering experience. If you've got an Irata 3 supervising they'll be able to assess anchors, but only those types they have experience of, and flat rooftops can disguise no end of nightmares under the felt - I remember finding a set of footings that looked like they were bolted down, but someone just glued half-inch bolts into the mastic.


..and btw, you most certainly can fall off a tight line. Anchors fail, ropes get cut, karabiners unscrew... it may not happen very often, so statistically we're very safe compared to fall arrest, but there's a damn good reason we all use twin ropes.

Rope access IMO is vastly safer than fall arrest or working in a MEWP when you look across all general work at height - the accident stats bear that out - however for cleaning windows it's a little less clear-cut, as the other options _can_ be even safer depending on the structure (flip-in glass, long-handled tools, permanent-gantry cradles). Portable ladders are hideously dangerous in comparison, but even though installing a temporary cradle is in itself a nasty job, once in it your chances of being injured or killed are just as low as for rope access (and you need less training).

I'd have no problems using RA cleaners where appropriate (I used to be one!) however if I were designing a new building I'd still do everything I could to engineer them out of the picture, purely because of the HSE's blanket dislike of anyone working in suspension unless absolutely necessary (based on the whole need-for-trained-rescuers thing rather than accident stats). Given most of the alternatives are equally low-risk it can sometimes be worth following their ideas, just to avoid having to justify yourself to everyone with a clipboard. It's not really cost-vs-safety, it's cost-vs-aggro.

See http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/misc612.pdf for a guide to RA in window cleaning.