Firm fined after window cleaner fell from roof

Thursday, October 29, 2009, 06:30

A window-cleaning firm from Lincoln has been ordered to pay out more than £5,000 after one of its employees fell from a roof, breaking eight ribs.

A Nicoll & Son Limited, which is based in Allenby Road Industrial Estate in Crofton Drive, Lincoln, was charged with breaking Health and Safety at Work regulations.

The city’s magistrates’ court was told how James Theaker, 50, was cleaning windows at Lincoln College, with two other employees, when the accident happened in November last year.

Mr Theaker had climbed onto a flat section of roof at the college to clean windows of a neighbouring building, when he reached over and fell.

The court heard that he plummeted 13ft to the ground, where his fall was broken by metal railings.

Directors of the company, Susan and Alistair Nicoll, pleaded guilty to contravening health and safety regulations.

Health and Safety Executive inspector Judith McNulty-Green was prosecuting in the case.

She told magistrates: “Work at that height should be properly planned and supervised and should be undertaken safely.

“The instructions given to the team were detailed about the location of the job, but were not detailed about the method of cleaning.

“The employees had not been told that they should have used a harness.”

The court heard that the workers had been using the pole-washing system – where water is pumped up extendable poles to clean high windows.

But several windows could not be reached using this method.

So Mr Theaker climbed onto the roof, without the use of a harness to prevent him falling.

Peter Smith, mitigating, told the court that the company has never broken a health and safety regulation before.

A Nicoll & Son Limited was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay £2,948 in court costs – meaning it will now have to pay a total of £5,448.

Representatives from Lincoln College are due at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, November 10 to face charges of breaking Health and Safety at Work regulations in relation to the same case.

For a statement from the company following the court case, see Thursday’s Echo.

Window Cleaning now and in the future will all ways need one thing… Window cleaning solution and chemicals to clean the glass.  Over the 20 years they type of chemical have change dramatically.  From water and vinegar to TRISODIUM PHOSPHATE (TSP), many different types of cleaning chemicals.  What is best?  That might just depend on who you talk to.  Twenty years ago it was TSP then it moved to water with ammonia and then to dish soap with ammonia.   The list goes on and on, many different store bought chemicals were uses and popular mainly because they are easy to get.  T0 the average route work window cleaner dish soap might be all they ever used till the late 80’s.  That is when the commercial chemicals started to take off.  The Pill by Unger soon became the industry stranded.  But it lacked the suds and bubbles of the dish soap.  Still it was very popular with commercial low and high rise cleaners. Titan Labotories introduced the Glass Gleam-3 used new “state-of-the art formulation, designed specifically for the professional window cleaner. It outperforms any other cleaner available. Tests with leading window cleaning companies and a survey of window cleaners who switched to GG-3, show conclusively that Glass Gleam-3 is the product window cleaners need and have been looking for.”

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TWO window cleaners have been hailed as heroes for rescuing an elderly woman from flats.

Lee Reardon, 25, and work-mate, Alfie Dunn, 23, leapt into action when they saw smoke coming from a window of St John’s Court in Paignton yesterday afternoon.

While Alfie climbed in through the first floor window and found Joan McMann, 82, in a smoke-filled room.

Lee went in through the door, led her to safety and put out the chip pan fire.

Mrs McMann said she felt like the ‘luckiest person in Paignton’ after being led to safety while firefighters hailed the pair as heroes.

“Bless their hearts, those boys saved my life” she said.

Lee said: “We were cleaning the windows and noticed smoke coming out of one of the windows. My friend went through the window and found an old lady inside.

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Execlent short video on how to scrub a window. It’s a bit over kill, but if your just starting out in the window cleaning business this video will help you understand the importance of the “scrubber”.