We love the Henchman tripod ladders and we're proud to carry their excellent ladders through the Midland Ladder brand, so we were delighted to see their first ever TV advert go live.  Created in partnership with Sky, the advert sees a gardener, David, faced with the task of trimming an unruly evergreen hedge.  First he tries an extension ladder leant against the hedge, but it falls sideways.  Then he tries a conventional stepladder, but the four feet can't get a steady base on the ground and it too falls over.    David takes a break and has a cuppa and a brainwave – he needs the Henchman Pro fully adjustable garden [...]

Ladder guards are one of the most useful ladder accessories you can get for when you're not using a ladder!  Most ladder safety accessories are designed for actually using the ladder – things like leg levellers, stoppers, stand offs and work platforms; they are all extras for making ladder use safer.  Ladder guards are for making ladders safer when they're not being used.   Building sites, home DIY projects and other spaces where ladders may be semi-permanently fixed for the duration of a project pose a risk to unauthorised visitors, and it is the site owner's responsibility to ensure that ladder access is restricted only to those who should be using [...]

MPs will be thinking hard about whether they're on the rise or destined for a fall from height in the next General Election, but whatever happens at the polls, the government will still have a cross-party working group focused on safety with ladders and other height access methods.   The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Working at Height is made up of MPs and members of the House of Lords and has no political affiliation.  It is a group of people who share a common interest in working at height safety issues, and who meet a few times throughout the year to discuss what they can do to further these [...]

Henchman is a byword for quality in the garden ladder market.  The family-owned firm was founded in 1994, from a collaboration between father and son Mike and Tom Kitching.  The idea arose from a near-miss fall from the stepladder, and the need for a GCSE design project, and Henchman have been dominating the market ever since.   Mike Kitching was working in the garden at their home using a stepladder, which aren't stable on soft ground and don't cope well with uneven levels, when he nearly toppled from the ladder.  These were the days before telescopic ladder technology, and there was no suitable alternative for outdoor use.  Tripod ladders had long [...]

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) bought three of the longest turntable ladders ever built, two years ago; They have a maximum reach of 64 metres (just under 210 feet), equating to 23 stories.  These mammoth ladders, based at Dagenham, Old Kent Road and Wimbledon, are capable of evacuating multiple casualties using lifts on the ladder, with stretchers fixable to these lifts for rescuing seriously injured people.   At fire scenes that are under 23 stories high, these huge ladders can also be used as water towers, so they are versatile pieces of kit that will be well used in the skyscraper-packed streets of London.  In addition to these mega ladders, which [...]

  Ladders don't come with a best before date as a general rule.  If your ladder is 10 years old it may be ready to replace, or it may be serviceable for another 10 years with proper maintenance and storage.  That said, 10 years is a good point at which to take stock and decide whether your ladder is still in safe working order.   A wooden ladder, with proper care and storage, can last between 5 and 10 years comfortably, especially if it's a domestic one used infrequently.  A wooden ladder that is used every day ought to be replaced after 5 years or thereabouts, as the small cracks in [...]

With the double Bank Holiday coming up on-call emergency doctors across the UK will be bracing for some ladder-related cases coming through the doors of A&E.  Figures for domestic ladder accidents suggest that 48,000 people present at hospital following a fall from a ladder in or around the home.  Most of these ladders will be stepladders and extension ladders, as they're the most commonly found pieces of height access equipment in the average home – more specialist ladders like garden tripods or combination ladders tend to be used by professionals and very keen DIYers.   Familiarity with ladders, as well as formal training, is one of the advantages that professional ladder [...]

Regular readers will know we love a tale of animals on ladders (or should that be tail?) and we've got a couple of sweet stories from around the world to share with you.  First up is the bear that got stuck in a skate-park in Snowmass, Colorado.  The concrete skate-park is easy to slide into, but not easy to get out of without a skateboard, a BMX, and some skills!   This skate-park is a bowl design, a bit like an empty swimming pool rather than open sided ramps, so when the bear slid in overnight it couldn't get out and was found by officials in the morning.  They procured a [...]

That was the considered opinion of the lawyer representing the defendant in a strange case in the Michigan Court of Appeals recently.  This inter-familial court case arose after a man sued his wife's aunt for negligence following his fall from a ladder on her property.  The plaintiff, Rodney Whiteside, regularly undertook paid maintenance duties at the home of his wife's aunt Earlene Reinwand in 2020.  On the day of the fall he was due to change an external light bulb on an outbuilding on her property, a task for which a ladder was needed.   Whiteside selected an aluminium extension ladder which did not have safety feet, being of an older [...]