Re: Ladders

[David W.E. Roberts]

I am going to paint the front of the house and I need a ladder about 7

> metres long. I can't seem to find two section extension ladders with > pulleys. If they are all without pulleys how do you extend them? Would it be > a better idea to buy a three section ladder? >

Depends on the overlap and the length of the original ladders. Assuming you are about 6' tall you should be able to reach up about 7'6" to push up the second laddder by hand. So if you have two 5m ladders you can achieve the combined length without pulleys. Hmmm...then again you need a slope for safety so you need a longer reach than that :-(

For shorter ladder lengths without pulleys you have to either use a 'pushing device' such as a piece of wood to extend the ladder when it is upright, or extend it on the ground first (which will then require a lot of space and muscle to get it upright).

Builders who have no fear stand on the lower bit, lean back a bit then extend the upper bit in jerks up the wall. Not my idea of fun. Not recommended for obvious reasons.

To decorate the front of a house I would recommend hiring a scaffolding tower - much easier and safer to work from :-)

Cheers Dave R

[Conrad Edwards]

I use two methods...

1) extend the ladder on the ground. then lift it.....ok if not too extended 2) Walk it up the wall a rung at a time...lean the ladder against the wall...pull it out a bit and lift the second section up so the top 'walks' up the wall.

[BigWallop]

If you're rising up a ladder to seven metres you'll only get a small section painted at a time. A lot of coming and going up and down the ladder in my mind. Hire a cherry picker for the day and do the whole thing properly and SAFELY !!!!

[Andrew Gabriel]

What sort of cost is that? Someone used to park one down my road every night, but I haven't seen it for a while now. Are they DIY, or you you have to get the company to rig up the stabalisers, etc, as I could imagine one used by someone who doesn't know what they're doing toppling over.

[<nightjar>]

Industrial suppliers have them.

You can usually extend an aluminium ladder on the ground, then stand it up. I wouldn't want to try that alone with my 3.5m GRP one though.

It will be easier to store.

Personally, for painting an entire side of a house, I would go for scaffolding.

Colin Bignell

[Martin Angove]

Just to say, cherry pickers can be great fun, but also very scary. I used to drive a large (70ft boom) machine at a previous place of employment. It was great because it had a huge stable base and needed no stabilisers, you could drive it to site (private roads etc.) and get up to the workplace without having to get down and set it up.

The scary thing was that the tyres made it rather "soft" and it bounced around quite a bit as you moved the boom - particularly at full stretch

- as I found out while taking my "IPAF" licence test.

Not very good on uneven or sloping ground though...

...if you ever get the chance to have a go in a cherry picker, do so :-) ...but scaffolding may well be cheaper.

Hwyl!

Martin.

[jerrybuilt]

Using a piece of braided rope.

[Frisket]

Gotta agree with you - cherry pickers are WELL exciting, especially moving at full boom extension! Was up one at 2am (night shift) in a plant working on the high bay sodium lighting. Looked down and could see a perfectly circular rainbow about 30 ft below. Several admiring minutes were passed before I realised the rainbow was being caused by a fine spray of hydraulic oil - the 30 or so seconds back to terra-firma were possibly the longest of my life. Turns out the spray was coming from a split hose. Still, I suppose it counts as DIY as I didn't need to buy a ready made laxative ;-)

Richard.