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Author: Peter Fogwill

Window cleaning poles

Window cleaning with a water fed pole is increasing in popularity across the world, and particularly in the UK. With this increase in popularity comes many different variations of pole the window cleaner can use, which include, telescopic and modular, and are made with three main materials which are Aluminium, Glass fibre, and Carbon fibre These two main types can be further broken down in the following ways..

Telescopic, which usually rely on clamping the individual sections together, which keeps the sections at and desired given height. The telescopic pole is the most widely used and comes in the three main materials mentioned above, which are aluminum, glass fibre, and carbon fibre.

Modular, Which usually relies on individual sections the same diameter that join together, by either threaded parts on each end, or by wedging one part inside the other.

The three main materials currently used as you can imagine have different properties with the Carbon fibre being the lightest and stiffest, followed by the aluminum, then the glassfibre. Cost wise as well they follow the same sequence with carbon fibre being the most expensive followed by aluminum, then glassfibre. Please remember that different grades and processing techniques have a lot to do with the final quality of the pole, and the price of the pole.

There are quite a few manufacturing processes involve in the manufacturing of the sections which we will take a look at, and which we will break down into two groups, Aluminum, and the Fibres (glass and carbon)

Firstly the aluminum sections can be made from rolling sheets of aluminum, or extruding. Rolling like the name suggests is a flat piece of aluminum with the wall thickness of the tube to be made, rolled around a mandrel and joined together to form the finished tube. Extruded is a bit more complicated and relies on soft aluminum being forced through a heated die the shape of the section which is being made.

Glass and carbon fibre sections have a few more ways in which they can be made, and here we will look at the most popular.

Rolled, much the same as the aluminum rolled, but the material rolled is impregnated matting. The matting is impregnated with a hardening resin, and rolled round a mandrel to form the desired shape, and then heated in an oven to cure. Once cured it is then removed from the mandrel and ready for use.

Pultruded, The pultruding is much the same process as for the aluminum except instead of being pushed through a die, it is pulled through. Individual fibres or strands and impregnated with hardening resin and pulled through a heated die which forms the shape, and hardens it. A chop saw then cuts the sections to the desired length automatically at the end of the process.

Pull winding, The same as pultruding except a winding machine is place in front of the die which allows strands to be wound round the tube as well as longitudinal strand running the whole length of the tube.

Filament winding, Again there is a mandrel and impregnated strands, this time the mandrel is spinning and the strands are fed onto the mandrel at a in a preset sequence, once the desired thickness has been achieved the mandrel and attached sections are left to cure, before the finished section is removed.

The above methods have there advantages and disadvantages. For instance the rolled tubes, and filament wound tubes, are time consuming and labour intensive, so more expensive for individual sections, but are ideal for short runs where samples are essential. The pultrusion, pull winding, extruding, are very little labour involved and are ideal for mass production. Cost per tube is very low, but the initial outlay is much higher with set-up costs and die costs.

Aquatec systems a UK based window cleaning supply company is working on a new type pole, one which is telescopic but dosn't rely on clamps. The advantage of this type of pole will be no time wasted manually putting up each section, and then clamping it, only to do the same to put the pole away. A flick of the wrist will put the pole up to working height, and a movement of the hand will fully close the pole again. All the time the operator is working the pole will stay at the desired working height.

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