"Harvey Van Sickle" wrote in message
...
On 03 Mar 2004, ewan wrote

Could anyone advise me on the safe angle a ladder should be at for
working on the outside of the house?
I want to paint the sofits and facias, so advice would be useful
so as I know what size ladders to purchase.
The house is a two storey detached.
Also, where should I purchase the ladders, as I don't think B&Q
are the cheapest.
I am based near Preston, any advice is welcomed.

Personally, I'd look into buying/hiring a tower to work from, rather
than a ladder.

Your mileage may vary, but have you worked at height on ladders? Sh*t,
that's scary.....

{I can't even clean gutters from a ladder -- never mind trying to wield
a paintbrush whilst both hands are white-knuckle gripping the ladder
rungs... ]

--
Cheers,
Harvey


Cleaning the gutters is more of a chore than painting IMO, as you need to
reach up and over, but a proper stand-off could solve this problem.

Now drilling some holes for soffit vents recently was far more fun and had
a couple of hairy moments as a fair amount of force was required to get the
hole saw through the soffit board, but thats what I get for buying a cheap
hole saw ;-)

But then there was the time that I stayed in a 3 storey tenemant and cleaned
the gutters once, this was done from the roof side of course, and no
ladders were involved ;-) but there were some great views from up there and
some strange looks form down below.

cheers

David