Ladder: use at near vertical

[Fredxx]

What's wrong with something like this?

[Steve Walker]

Clamp a piece of wood to the ladder, at the highest you can reach from the ground and jammed against the opposite wall?

How high is the oppisite wall? If it's full height, at least you know that even if the ladder tilts back, you are not going to go far ;)

SteveW

[Dave Liquorice]

secure

How does that help when you've fallen and are dangling on the end of it?

[Bill Wright]

Only if the bricks are very weak. However I prefer the type of anchor bolt that has a sleeve at the bottom of the hole that expands and jams.

Bill

[Cynic]

How far apart are the walls? I'm thinking of the peranently fixed vertical ladders with a tunnel cage found on various sites. Regular users often lean back against the cage as they go up or down while carrying bulky items. A wall at your back is even better.

[bill.shitner]

Thanks for all the replies.

Responding to a number of suggestions relating to using the adjacent building to brace the ladder- unfortunately,that is not an option in this case. There is a space of about 8 feet between the buildings, but with a fence dividing that space. The reality is that the maximum distance from my house that I can rest the ladder base is about 3 feet.

I watched the Dibnah vid on laddering a chimney some time back. Amazing chap. Can't recall whether it's that vid, or a different one, where he climbs an old tower with a big ledge at the top and with his ladders strapped around the downward-facing underside of the ledge. It looked terrifying.

I'm no Dibnah and the height of working will be up to gutter level of a two storey house. I have a small platform to get a lower bracket fixed to the wall at, say, 8 to 10 feet up. With that in place, I could fix the ladder and get another bracket higher up. My plan was to use a harness because I appreciate that hanging on without gravity in my favour would be tricky!

Thanks.

Bill.

[harry]

The danger is with (near)vertical ladders that there is insufficient friction between the wall and the top of the ladder to stop the top of the ladder sliding sideways. The fence will be a big problem as it impedes access.

[harry]

Better/safer with a tower if you ask me.

[Cynic]

Now we have more detail it suggests various options

1. speak to the owner of the other side of the fence and access from that side
2. get help for the first attempt while you install stainless steel eyebolts at each end of the restricted section with a tensioned stainless steel cable between them to which you can secure a sliding uv resistant nylon rope. Whenever you require to access the gutter etc place the ladder and slide the rope next to it. Hold the rope under tension as you climb to prevent the tendency to fall backwards and when you are high enough tie it off to the ladder. On completion reverse the process.
3. Install "hook" brackets to engage with the top rung and "hang" the ladder before climbing.
4. Buy one of the compound ladders which have sections that can be conjured to form a big FO step ladder and work sideways. (The neighbours will probably want to borrow it from time to time)

[Robin]

I defer to your vastly greater experience. I'm probably be biased (or is it scarred?) from living the past 45 years in London among predominantly London stock. [Cue "soft Southerner" digs.]

[Tricky Dicky]

Is it not simpler to ask your neighbour for permission to use his property to rest the ladder in or is that another problem?

Richard

[Bill Wright]

I really should have said that although expanding bolts are OK for 80

90% of the time in reasonable bricks, you do get an occasional failure when the brick has a flaw. And you do have to keep your hole well away from the edges of the brick. And they are hopeless in soft bricks, unless you are prepared to not tighten them properly (which is often done).

I have always preferred sleeve anchors for that reason. They do seem to stress the brick less. They aren't without their problems however. It's best to use the ones with a nut at the visible end rather than a bolt head. There are a few tricks.

Tap the thing into the wall by hitting the nut with it slightly off the end of the bolt, so you don't damage the thread in case you need to take the nut off. Why would you do that? If there's a small cavity in the brick in the wrong place you might need to take the nut off and put some washers under it.

If the whole bolt is turning when you try to tighten the nut it means the anchor hasn't engaged. Put a blade under the nut and gently lever the bolt forwards, and simultaneously turn the nut. The anchor should bite and stop the bolt turning.

If the nut seems tight but the thing you're fixing doesn't seem to be tightly held, undo the nut a few turns and hit the bolt with a hammer so it relocates the sleeve. Then retighten.

Always drill deeper than the bolt length, and clean the hole out.

If the SDS drill bit is worn at the edges the hole will be a tiny bit smaller that it should be. When you put the bolt in it will be very tight. Don't hammer it in; that won't work. Get a new drill bit.

Try to look at an individual brick from above/below if you can find one where that view is visible. Then you'll know where the cavities are.

Using long bolts and going right through the brick can/will cause the brick to shell as the drill emerges. That can make a weak point and when you tighten the bolt it can give way and collapse into a cavity.

I normally use 100mm or 125mm sleeve anchors with M8 thread. Drill is

10mm diameter. It's easier to get a good fix with a big diameter than with a small one.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

Or do the job when they are out, if they are being difficult. There's no recourse for them even if they find out.

Bill

[Andrew]

The arsewipe living next to me did that. After removing his half of the semi-detached pair of garages and building an extension, he fitted a huge pole with a massive freeview rig plus FM halo aerial and sky/freesat dish on his new gable end.

It appeared when I was out and he could only have done it by plonking his ladder on my garage roof.

[Steve Walker]

Can you not agree access to put the ladder in the neighbouring property, with the base far enough out that the ladder clears the fence.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

My parents' neighbours - the best neighbours you could have - had a car port put up by another neighbour who was a builder. He put one of the steel support poles *inside* my parents' steel gatepost (there was a gate allowing access to and from each other's gardens) and ran the downpipe from the gutter onto my parents' (at the time leaky) garage roof!

He refused to put it right, so we left the support as it was and re-did the gutter so it emptied directly into ours. Our neighbours rapidly fell out with the neighbour who'd built it for them.

SteveW

[tony sayer]

In article [e-mail], [e-mail] scribeth thus

You mean this one at 4:10 onwards!..

He never did say who or how the ladder was rigged in the first place!..

[Chris Hogg]

It makes you wonder what the fatality rate was for steeplejacks of Dibnah's era.