Stepladders – Your New Best Friend
A step ladder is your best friend around the home. A short one is useful for reaching on top of cupboards and high shelves, and a tall one is the best for hanging wallpaper, painting or putting up shelves or picture hooks. Not many step ladders can be both short and tall at the same time, so you might think about buying two that will fulfil all your height needs. Domestic rated step ladders are not expensive, and if you already have, say, a tall step ladder then you only need to buy a shorter one if you have the need for it. If you don't have any step ladders, or [...]
Safer Library Ladders
Library Ladders There is now a new range of ergonomic library ladders available that can be configured to slide around corners. Library ladders run on a rail fixed near the ceiling and can be pushed along sets of shelves to allow quick access to all heights. These new designs can go round corners, as the curved running rails and sleek design of the ladder allow for a smooth gliding action. It's not just in libraries (either domestic, public or academic) that these ladder systems can be used. They are often found in shops or bars with high ceilings and lots of wall-based storage, and these new modern ladders would work perfectly [...]
A Ladder that Helps!
A Ladder that Helps When You've Fallen from One Already! Many people who use ladders regularly, especially tall ladders within structures such as wind turbines and grain silos, will be fitted with a fall-arrest system that prevents them from dropping to the ground in the event of slipping from the ladder. These fall-arrest systems are usually in the form of a full body harness that leaves the person dangling from an anchor point while they await rescue. Although these systems do prevent serious injury or death by eliminating the risk of a full fall to the ground, they come with another set of problems. Any type of body harness has the [...]
Ladder stands – When Hunting is a Way of Life
A ladder stand is a useful bit of kit designed for hunters to blend into the woodland and gain a height advantage over their prey. The idea is that being off the ground gives you a better view of the target and keeps you out of their line of sight. They consist of a ladder and platform, which attaches to a tree by way of ratchet straps or ropes. You might be on the platform for a long time waiting for a shot, so some platforms and seats come with guard rails to prevent falls, and padded seats with enough room to move around to make the day as comfortable as [...]
A Bit of Culture with Your Ladder? test
One might not associate ladders with opera, but Rossini's La scala di seta is an operatic farce centred around a ladder. The title, translated, means 'the silken ladder', which is the main prop in this romantic story of an illicit relationship between Giulia, a woman who has been promised to another, and her lover Dorvil. Every night Dorvil visits Giulia by climbing a ladder made of silk into her room. The action of the opera takes place in the bedroom and the ascent of the ladder each night is crucial to the plot, so when the piece was played at the Linbury Studio in The Royal Opera House, London, the set [...]
Time to Get Out Your Garden Ladder?
Time for Garden Ladders? Early last year many of us were looking out at our flooded gardens, wondering whether we'd ever be able to salvage the lawn and put things right again. A year on and no doubt there is still some work to be done, but most people have managed to fix a lot of the flood damage already. This year we can start to build on that progress and get our gardens ready for the spring and summer months. Orchard Ladders The months of January and February typically see the coldest weather of the year, so there is not a lot that can be done in terms of planting [...]
Easter Eggs Up a Ladder
If you have to work over the Easter weekend, why not make it a bit more fun and have an Easter egg hunt? Small eggs can be hidden inside the hollow rungs of an extension ladder and in the tool trays of any ladder that comes with one or has an after-market version attached. You can even place a big egg in a high place, and challenge others to determine the correct access equipment needed to get it down. Chocolate is the nation's favourite treat, so by using it as a helpful educational tool you can test and assess everyone's knowledge of ladder safety and good practice by offering Easter eggs [...]
Why Getting off the Ladder Can Be an Excellent Choice
When Jerry Snyder, head basketball coach at Lake City, Minnesota, got down off a ladder in the late 1970s on the off chance that the tall kid walking along the pavement could play basketball he made one of the best choices of his career. He had spotted highschooler Randy Breuer walking with friends in the neighbourhood. Whilst painting a house for a summer job in the late 1970s he noticed that one of the group was at least two feet taller than the others, so Snyder took the chance that this impossibly tall child could be a future basketball star and descended his ladder to talk to him. Fast forward a [...]
Latest Ladder News – Part 2
Welcome to part two of the first ladder news round up of 2015, where we look at the emergency services on ladders, ladder-related crimes and daring rescues. Firefighters are often involved in helping people who have fallen from ladders, and they use ladders on a daily basis to rescue people from burning buildings or other risky situations. In New York firefighters carried out an ice rescue to help a 10-year-old boy who was stuck on ice on a pond in Concrete Plant Park. One firefighter fell through the ice and was submerged up to his chest in freezing water, but they carried on with the rescue, first throwing a life ring [...]
Fish Ladder Round Up!
The Nequasset dam in Woolwich, Maine, is the location of a very important fish ladder project which aims to protect the future of alewives, and has been doing so for 300 years. The town of Woolwich has stipulated for centuries that any dam built there must also provide a means for returning fish to get to the spawning ground upstream. The dam was rebuilt in the 1950s and the fish ladder that formed part of it was badly in need of repair. Bath Water District, who own the land and dam, worked with the local Fish Commission, as well as local and national authorities and fish harvesters on the restoration project. [...]
