Method · Access planning

High windows

The question “how do I clean my high windows?” has a hierarchy for an answer, not a product. In order: avoid the height entirely by cleaning from inside; move the method up the wall while you stay on the ground; and only then treat what is left as an access-planning problem for someone competent to plan it. This page walks that order and is honest about where DIY ends.

Step 1 — avoid the height

HSE’s window-cleaning guidance starts where every good plan starts: avoid work at height where reasonably practicable.^[HSE] For a house, that means checking the boring options first: panes that open inwards clean from the room; tilt-and-turn units are designed for exactly this; and a pane you can reach through an adjacent opening may need a different order of work rather than different equipment. Inside-first is not timidity — it removes the entire falling problem from the job.

Step 2 — ground-based methods, checked against real geometry

Telescopic and water-fed poles move the cleaning method up the wall while your feet stay on the ground — HSE lists them alongside inside cleaning as ways to avoid working at height.^[HSE] Two honesty rules make this step real rather than notional. First, use the manufacturer’s stated working length, not the advertised length, and check it against your building’s measured geometry — the pole reach planner does the trigonometry and refuses to flatter the answer. Second, respect that ground-based has its own hazard list: the HSE/FWC pole guide covers hoses, slips, manual handling, electrical lines, thunder and wind, and a defective pole is a stop, not a nuisance.^[HSE/FWC]

Step 3 — what is left is access planning

When inside and ground methods genuinely run out, the next move is a decision, not a purchase. HSE’s step-by-step approach asks whether an existing safe place of work — a balcony, a protected walkway — already exists before any additional access equipment is considered.^[HSE] Ladders sit in this landscape more narrowly than folklore suggests: not banned, but not an automatic first choice either — HSE frames them as an option for low-risk, short-duration work when better options are not reasonably practicable.^[HSE] This site draws its line here on purpose: the access decision sheet composes one of four conservative states and never selects a ladder, tower, platform or product.

If competent planning determines that temporary access equipment is appropriate, Mammoth Hire’s access equipment hire range is one place to compare current tower, platform and powered-access options. The catalogue does not decide whether a method or item is appropriate for this window: selection, site checks, competence and the plan of work remain separate.

Paid work is a different category

If the window cleaning is a job — you are paying someone, or you are the someone — the Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply to whoever controls the work: it must be properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out by competent people, with work at height avoided where reasonably practicable.^[WAHR] A professional turning up with a pole system and a method statement is those duties working as intended. For your own private DIY, the regulations are not aimed at you — this site simply borrows their shape as a conservative planning framework, because the physics does not check the paperwork.

What “stop” actually buys you

Every stop state on this site converts a bad afternoon into a planning task: a pane that stays dirty for another week costs nothing, while the alternatives are not symmetrical. Stop, and either change the method — inside, geometry, water — or change the plan to include someone competent to design the access. The decision sheet exists so that the conclusion is written down, printable, and re-checkable when conditions change.

Correction and version note: written for content contract 2026-08-21.1; sources accessed 2026-08-20. Corrections are recorded on the methodology sheet.