Working at height is a necessary part of many professions, from painters and decorators to builders and roofers to window cleaners. In any such circumstance where we need to work at height we need to chose the correct and safest method of doing this.
There are many options for working at height, the most common being ladders. These ladders come in different types and each different type of ladder has a design with different areas of work in mind. There are two main types, step ladders and extensions ladders.
The key is to make sure that which ever ladder you are going to use, it is going to be safe and stabile, each has its advantages and disadvantages for different jobs. The step ladder has two foot rests resting on the ground making it a lot more stable than an extension ladder which is the type that leans up against the wall or other object the user is attempting to reach. The step ladder is a good safe way to reach relatively low heights, such as painting the ceiling in a house. The extension ladder is almost exclusively for outdoor use and while it can reach much higher levels, it is less stable and an extra person to hold the ladder at its base is recommended, if you do not have professional safety equipment.
As useful as ladders are, they do not always hold the best solution for working at height. Many jobs require the workman to not only reach a high level but also to move horizontally at that level, this occurs during the building or renovation of a structure. In these instances the favoured solution is the use of scaffolding or a scaffold tower as it is also known. These are a series of metal poles and wooden planks which are put together on site and allow easy and safe movement at height, the construction of a scaffold tower is in itself a difficult job which should only be carried out by a professional company as it must be safely secured when constructed.
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