Window cleaner

Commercial work is contracted variously from in-person transactions for cash or barter, to formal tender processes.

A trade in window cleaning developed, for instance, in New York City in the late 19th century when early skyscrapers were being built.

Jan Demczur, Polish employee working in the North Tower, survived and helped save five other people who had been trapped in an elevator with him.

[3] Unlike in Scotland, there is no government licensing in the United States, England or Wales - this means anyone can claim to be a window cleaner.

This guidance clarifies that for short duration work like window cleaning, provided a number of well-recognised precautions are taken, ladders will remain a common tool for many jobs.

The feet of portable ladders must be prevented from slipping during use by securing the stiles at or near their upper or lower ends, by any anti-slip device or by any other arrangement of equivalent effectiveness.

[9][10] The HSE favours the use of scaffold towers, i.e. temporary workstations, for window cleaning but says this is rather awkward: "For some jobs, a mobile elevating work platform will be the best option.

During the spring of 2006 Defra considered banning the non-essential use of water and extending their already tight restrictions to prevent the use of water-fed safer which reach up to 60 ft.

Window cleaners could return to the bucket-and-mop method, because Health and Safety Working at Heights allows such for temporary access.

More recently, in high tech societies the use of fully automated robotic window cleaners, also for houses, is starting to become common.