Climbing Balcony Railings or Not?

You could always get yourself a hook ladder. :imp:

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The problem is sometimes theres a whole lot of crap on the other side of the railing. Depends on railing height and quality/age of railing and how much ledge you have to stand on…

I would have done it in a heart beat 5 years ago! Now I would probably knock on all doors and if their not home tough luck. No dirty window is worth putting yourself in even the slightest danger of serious injury (3rd floor railing hopping).

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Osha doesnt care as long as you do it safely, ie with fall arrest or with someone footing a ladder…from osha,standpoint on this id guess theyd prefer a lift

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Scheduled for next week, decided to send guy inside to enter balcony exterior windows.

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Perhaps stating that you will enter units only with an accompanying staff member. This will prevent any accusations from being in someone’s apartment alone. It may even be easier, safer, and quicker than hauling a ladder around.

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Apologies for the previous post - thought this was a new thread. Good luck!

We are doing an apartment building next week. The owner said he wanted the balcony is done and I explained that it’s not practical to have technicians climbing over railings three stories up so he said he’s going to personally open up the units for me and let me do the darkness. The owner said he wanted the balcony is done and I explained that it’s not practical to have technicians climbing over railings three stories up so he said he’s going to personally open up the units for me and let me do the balcony. He also said this would give him a good reason to see how they’re taking care of the units haha.

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@anon46335951 I have a similiar situation going on right now. I was curious as to what the result was. I got a ledge on 3 story windows that IS NOT a balcony. The city states in the bid window cleaners aren’t allowed on ledges without anchoring, but there isn’t anything to anchor to. It would be simple up a ladder clean and down but I’d have to walk along the edges.

What I did was educated the customer in safe work practices of laddering it or doing it from the interior.

The previous company used ladders and she was not comfortable with it when they did that so this assured her that we were safe company.

What we ended up doing was entering the units through the interior which was time-consuming but I did include this into my bid and it was a ton of units it took three of us a day to do this work. Years ago we would ladder, jump over the balcony, you get to a point that you realize if it’s worth it or not to risk. Especially employees doing that type of work should always think about the safety Factor of others you employ.

Customers will pay for safety, educate them, let them know what the proper procedures should be. By educating them on proper procedures it also helps them compare your bids to other people’s bids that might be doing this in an unsafe manner.

Many of us are capable of stretching the limits in doing sketchy things but what you got to come to realize is if its worth the risk. A simple mishap can leave you in a very bad position, even destroy what you’ve worked for.

Send a picture

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I’m meeting with the maintenance director tomorrow so he can give me a walk
through on what’s needed. This is for the city so I want everything to be
squared away ill shoot you a pic tomorrow