Working in the Sun - A Guide

Working in Extreme Heat

How hot is too hot?
The answer varies according to your overall fitness and the type of physical activity the work requires. No matter what the temperature is around you, your body tries to maintain its normal internal temperature of 98.6. For most of us, that means we're comfortable working in an environment of about 73 degrees (with 45 percent humidity), but that ideal could drop as low as 55 degrees if your work is extremely labor intensive.

What happens to the body under extreme heat conditions?
If your body is not used to working in extreme heat, or "acclimatized," its first reaction will likely be to increase your internal temperature -- in other words, to give you a fever. Working in this state increases your pulse rate, strains the heart, and in severe cases may cause a life-threatening heat stroke.

Of course, your body will work hard to bring down your temperature. It sheds excess heat primarily through sweating, which cools off the body. That's why humid conditions or clothing that doesn't allow for evaporation foil the body's attempts at cooling itself through sweating.

But if you're not yet used to heat, your body sweats inefficiently. Not only will it not sweat enough, it'll produce sweat that's high in salt content, which depletes the body of electrolytes and can cause heat exhaustion. Once your body becomes used to the heat, it sweats more efficiently.

The other way the body sheds excess heat is by altering your blood circulation. The heart begins to pump more blood into the small blood vessels near the skin's surface, where the heat of the blood is transferred to the cooler outside environment. If the outside environment is not cooler than the body's 98.6 degrees, however, this method is ineffective. In a person unaccustomed to the climate, this change in circulation puts extra stress on the heart.

What can working in extreme heat do to me?•Fainting or heat collapse. This usually occurs in the unacclimatized worker because the brain isn't receiving enough oxygen. (Because the heart is pumping blood out to the capillaries in a frantic attempt to cool down the body, the blood pools in the extremities instead of returning to the heart to be pumped up to the brain.) Workers who stand erect and immobile are especially prone to fainting (remember the old movies in which a young soldier passes out while standing at attention in a line during inspection?). Fainting can be extremely dangerous if workers fall while they're operating heavy or hot equipment. It can be prevented by gradually acclimatizing workers to the environment. Treat this by cooling the person, administering fluids and evaluating any injury that may have occurred from fainting.
•Heat stroke. This is the most serious health problem caused by working in hot environments, and early recognition and treatment of it is critical. Symptoms include dilated pupils, confusion, angry behavior, delirium, and even convulsions. The victim needs immediate first aid, followed by hospitalization, to prevent brain damage or death. Take the individual to a cool area, soak his clothes with water, and vigorously fan the body until help arrives. Do not give the victim fluids to drink. Emergency medical treatment is crucial.

•Heat exhaustion. This condition is caused by losing large amounts of fluid through sweating. Symptoms range from extreme weakness or fatigue, giddiness, nausea, chills, and headache to vomiting or fainting. The skin will be clammy and moist, the complexion can be pale or flushed, but the body temperature will be normal or only slightly elevated. The pupils will be normal as well. Treat by having the victim lie down in a cool place and drink cool, nonalcoholic liquids; severe cases may require medical treatment.

•Heat cramps. These are painful muscle spasms caused by electrolyte imbalances in the body. They usually occur among workers who are performing hard physical labor, sweat profusely, and drink either too much or too little water (cramps can be caused by a deficiency or an excess of salt in the body). To prevent heat cramps in a hot environment, workers should drink about a cup of either water or electrolyte solution every 20 minutes. Once someone has heat cramps, clear juice or an electrolyte solution can help alleviate them. Seek medical treatment if cramps persist for and hour or more.

•Heat rash/prickly heat. This is one of the most common problems in hot, humid work environments. It occurs when sweat cannot evaporate off the skin -- either because the environment is too humid or because of inappropriate clothing. Sweat ducts become plugged, causing red papules, or bumps, to appear on the skin. Heat rash is very uncomfortable, especially when complicated by a subsequent infection. Treat it by resting in a cool place periodically and by regular washing with soap and water and drying of the skin. To prevent a rash, avoid wearing synthetic clothing; natural fiber, such as cotton, is best.

•Accidents. Working in hot environments can promote accidents such as burns and mishaps caused by slippery, sweaty palms, or fogged safety glasses. Less obvious are accidents caused because workers are experiencing physical and mental fatigue from heat stress. Be careful to take breaks in cool areas and drink plenty of fluids.
Are there people who shouldn't work under extreme heat conditions?

If you're overweight, have heart problems, or are on a low-sodium diet, consult with your physician before doing this kind of work. You may also be more vulnerable to heat if you are taking diuretics, thyroid medicines, tricyclic antidepressants, and some anti-psychotic medications.

How can I protect myself?
Wear loose-fitting clothing, take frequent breaks in a cool rest area, open windows and install fans, and get plenty of fluids (a cup of water every 20 minutes or so under extremely hot conditions). Avoid beer and other alcoholic drinks.

Window Cleaning News

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Farrar: “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, opening June 24th, is the second film in the series based on the Hasbro toy/cartoon. Scott Farrar, whose long career has roots in the first “Star Wars”, supervised all the complex visual effects. Farrar, who gave a precise overview of the challenges and proven results in upping the ante from the first Transformers film. The Visual Effects, which I handle, is essentially things that are not there on the day that I’m going to put in later. For example, a robot has to stand on mark ‘A’ and walk to mark ‘B’.
For that, I use what is called ‘low tech for high effect’, window washer poles with Production Assistants standing there. Then I might have a person walk from A to B, or have those poles extended to the proper height of the robot, because the camera operator needs to know what to look for, where to frame for a robot when they are looking through the camera. We can at least establish where a robot will be and how high he is. I am there as a visual referee. I can imagine those robots much better than most, because that is what I’ve been doing for long time. It’s all imagination.

Jordan Could Marry A Window Cleaner: Katie Price And Peter Andre Less Likely To Reconcile As Katie Considers Im A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Katie Price And Peter Andre’s Split is becoming messier by the day and that has led to bookies William Hill lengthening their odds on the pair getting back together. Reconciliation Now Out Of The Question William Hill had been offering 2/1 that Jordan and Peter Andre could reconcile presumably under the assumption that it could all be an elaborate publicity stunt. Things have taken a turn for the worse for the pair though and William Hill have pushed out the odds of a reconciliation all the way to 10/1. You can get huge odds of 250/1 with William Hill that once again Katie Price meets her next husband on the show and William Hill are betting on the profession of Jordan’s next husband. An actor is favourite at 5/2 whilst a fellow model is next best at 4/1 with William Hill. A footballer wouldn’t be a surprise and that is overpriced at 6/1 whilst you can get 100/1 on it being a window cleaner!

Compass Group’s ESS extends defence contracts: ESS Support Services Worldwide, part of Compass Group, has picked up several new defence contracts and extensions worth more than £3.7m a year in total turnover. These include a four-year extension from support services company Carillon of the ESS contract at RAF Spadeadam in Cumbria. The deal, worth £1.4m in total turnover, includes catering and cleaning for around 250 personnel at the base, where Compass has provided services already for more than five years. Arborfield, home to the Army’s School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, has also extended the contract held by ESS there by two years. Having been on site for the past decade, ESS will continue to provide catering, cleaning, general refuse, hazardous waste disposal, road sweeping, tailoring, shoe repair, laundry, domestic assistance and window cleaning at the site.

Cleaning Services in Australia - New Company and Market Analysis: This is the replacement for the December 2008 edition of Cleaning Services in Australia report. Industry Market Research Synopsis This Industry Market Research report provides a detailed analysis of the Cleaning Services in Australia industry, including key growth trends, statistics, forecasts, the competitive environment including market shares and the key issues facing the industry. Industry Definition This report relates to firms that provide window, building, telephone cleaning or similar cleaning services (except carpet cleaning, shampooing services, steam cleaning or sand blasting of building exteriors). Report Contents The Key Statistics chapter provides the key indicators for the industry for at least the last three years. The statistics included are industry revenue, industry gross product, employment, establishments, exports, imports, domestic demand and total wages. The Market Characteristics chapter covers the following: Market Size, Linkages, Demand Determinants, Domestic and International Markets, Basis of Competition and Life Cycle. The Market Size section gives the size of the domestic market as well as the size of the export market. The Linkages section lists the industry´s major supplier and major customer industries. The Demand Determinants section lists the key factors which are likely to cause demand to rise or fall. The Domestic and International Markets section defines the market for the products and services of the industry.

Benefit concert for musician (ex window cleaner): A benefit concert for one of the area's beloved musical brethren will take place tonight at Jax, next to the Pickle Barrel Night Club in Killington — an evening of music, family and friends with a large lineup of local artists performing. James Rohn died just before the holiday season last year. From his years as a drummer with rock and country bands to his days of blues projects and bass and percussion adventures with large ensembles and small acoustic trios, he covered it all with a bright sense of humor.
Rohn, who also worked security for author Stephen King and hung from scaffolding as a window washer, drove a Harley Davidson motorcycle and also a limo from time to time, ran a driving range and took great photos. Rohn's ashes will be taken to the VA Memorial earlier in the day via Harley Davidson, and immediately following a concert marathon will kick off at 5 p.m. featuring many of the bands Rohn worked with throughout his career. Lending their music are: Joey Leone, Ziggy Jager, Dave LaFountain, Steve Kyhill, Jim Disabito, Annie Somers and Jon Turin, Green River, Lazy Boy & The Recliners, Wayne Canney, Mr. Blues and Rick Redington & The Luv.

Baby Yvie continues to defy the odds: ONE baby Guernsey girl has defied doctors’ expectations by surviving a series of gruelling operations. Yvie Margetts, aged 18 months, was born with a heart defect which resulted in four operations - including two open heart - but three weeks ago she returned to Guernsey and has never been better. ‘Doctors have said so many times they don’t know how she has made it through the night. ‘She has just made up her own rules and they have no idea how she keeps pulling through. She has always beaten the odds,’ said Yvie’s mum, 27-year-old Laura.
A week after 18-month-old Yvie was born, Mrs Margetts and her husband, 28-year-old Daryl, a window cleaner, were told she had a heart defect. The family were referred to Southampton Hospital but an operation could not be performed until she was at least six months old. A further MRI scan revealed Yvie also had neurological problems. The pons, an area of the brain which controls sensory information and regulates respiration, had not formed properly. ‘There is no name for her condition and it is not genetic, but all of her problems stem from this neurological problem,’ said Mrs Margetts.

Role reversal - Bosses come clean: It was a night shift with a difference as workers who normally clean floors and windows got the chance to order their bosses around. Senior managers from Festival City Mall swapped their suits and ties for brooms and dustbins as they spent an eight-hour shift finding out what it is like to clean up after all have left for the day. Johnny Moura, a housekeeping attendant at the mall, had the task of ensuring that Tom Miles, Director of Shopping Centres at Al Futtaim Group Real Estate, did his job for the night.
Moura, originally from Goa, India has been working at the mall for two years as a window cleaner and bin emptier. “I felt so proud that he would spend the shift with us to find out how we worked.” The ‘shift’ began at 10pm. Moura said, “I only had to explain to him how to do things once. He did it without any complai nts. “Everyone who is on my shift was very happy that the managers took time to see how we work. “It is a long shift and there is a lot of walking about but he handled it very well. He spent part of the night cleaning the windows on the link bridge to Ikea and did a very good job.”
Tom Miles told XPRESS he had learnt a lot from the experience. “The last time I did anything like that was a couple of decades ago when I worked as a janitor in my high school,” he said. Around nine managers took part in the event, accompanied by 20 “supervisors” who made sure they did the work properly. Miles said: “The supervisors were the workers who would normally do the jobs we were doing. “The whole inspiration for this came from one of the managers who felt it would be a good way to understand what our staf f experience. “It’s definitely made me appreciate the work that they do. “One of the things I never realised was how many people are still in the mall in the early hours.”
Rafiq Qureshi, the security and housekeeping manager, had to operate the mobile cleaning machine throughout the shift. He said: “It was my job to clean the floors of the entire mall.
“It’s really been a worthwhile exercise and everyone who took part had their eyes opened to what our staff do. It was great to see the reaction from the people who normally do the shift and was a real boost to morale.” The exercise was so successful that plans are afoot to hold similar exercises once a month.

Make purchases without cash: In a tough economy, more business owners are conserving cash by bartering for the stuff they need. Even in modern times, bartering remains a practical choice for small businesses. It's a cash preservation tool, something that's especially useful in a tough economy. It can also help move unsold inventory or put idled staff to work. Done right, bartering can even drive new cash business. But increasing numbers of small businesses are joining barter exchanges that make it possible to arrange trades within a large online network. U.S. exchanges now boast about 250,000 small business members, up from 200,000 five years ago, according to the International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA), based in Rochester, N.Y. Because so many swaps are informal, the size of the small business barter economy is hard to gauge. Typically, bartering activity spikes during economic downturns. Meyer expects the total volume of U.S. barter transactions to grow 10% this year (historically the annual growth rate has hovered around 5%). "Right now many small businesses are starved for customers," he says. "If you're a savvy owner, barter is just another doorway that brings customers into your establishment."
For better or worse, many business owners gravitate to informal barter because the deals tend to stay off the books. It's hard for the IRS to uncover an instance of bartering if neither party reports it, says Tom O chsenschlager, vice president of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Washington, D.C. But informal barter has drawbacks. Would-be traders must locate a counterpart for each transaction. And some swaps simply don't make sense. It might be impractical to cut a $10,000 barter deal with a restaurant, for example. Would you really want all those chicken dinners? And what if the restaurant went out of business before you'd claimed your grub? By contrast, joining an online barter exchange can expand your network of trading partners and provide access to a much larger selection of goods and services.
Thanks mostly to the Internet, the U.S. currently boasts some 500 barter exchanges, up from about 40 in 1980. Kar trades through an outfit called BizXchange that's headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. Here's how it works: Say a printing company uses the exchange to buy $1,000 worth of Kar's coffee. Kar will receive $1,000 worth of trade dollars that he can use to pay for any good or service offered on the exchange. He d oesn't have to barter directly with the printer. In fact, if the printer goes belly-up, Kar keeps his 1,000 trade dollars. He could split up his barter purchases, buying 500 trade dollars' worth of lightbulbs and 500 in window cleaning. "An exchange is like a small closed economy with its own currency," explains David Wallach, executive director of IRTA.
Most barter exchanges charge a onetime membership fee (typically around $250) plus a monthly fee ($30 is standard). You also pay the exchange a commission of 5% to 8% on each barter transaction. The fees buy access to a broader range of barter transactions than you could structure for yourself. You also get to join an online community consisting mostly of small business owners.

Jaime Paramo is nailing his way along this roof in Fort Worth where the surface temperature could top 140 degrees. "It's hot to the touch. It's almost like touching a burner on a stove." The summer weather that's making it so tough on these workers, however, is terrific for business. Keith Carpenter, who owns Panther City says the hotter it is, the more customers he gets. "They feel the storm season has passed by June, July and August, so I start, the leads I get in April and May, people are ready to put their roofs on in June, July and August."
You might think a day like today would also mean big business for this ice cream truck, but not even a lick. Kevin Medrano says, "You can say that's a myth. Really in summer, people just decide to stay inside and they don't come out."
Also feeling the heat are these window cleaners. They're in a race against time and the increasingly hot sun, which makes it difficult to get their work surfaces streak free. Kris Radau says, "You just have to get the water off the glass 'cause the water evaporates fast. You don't want to leave a bad job. You want to leave a good job."
There are times right now redoing the job is unavoidable. That costs the owner of Fort Worth Window Cleaning, Inc. time and money. Rhett Caraway has also had to cancel or postpone work because customers call and say it's simply too hot. One woman, concerned about the health of the windows cleaners in the heat. Rhett Caraway says, "She said well I just looked at my thermometer on my back patio and it said 114. Why don't you come out in September? So, that cost us a job right there." Comment: Now read below!

Cool summer ahead? Pictured: Window cleaner Ryan McCord braves Tuesday's rainy weather. He says the cooler temperatures this spring are similar to those four years ago. Yellowknife's summer has been cooler than normal and the weather is not predicted to improve, according to Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips. "May was just brutal, and June hasn't been much better," he said. Despite predicting more of the same cooler temperatures for the rest of summer, Phillips said the computer forecasts were not totally convincing, and it could go either way. "The good news is I don't have a lot of confidence in the forecast," he said. "There was no clear majority. We just had to flip a coin and make a call."

Mendoza celebrates washing windows: LIHU‘E — When pain, environmental sensitivities, fatigue and cognitive dysfunction took over Karin Zoe Mendoza’s world, her successful window washing enterprise came to an end. She was unable to maintain any kind of regular scheduling, and with two teen-aged children to care for, Mendoza applied for Social Security benefits to help provide for the children. But she was still determined to be productive and independent. “I don’t know what to say,” Mendoza said, tears of appreciation and gratefulness welling in her eyes. “The people at the Kaua‘i Branch of the state Department of Human Services Vocational Rehabilitation and Services for the Blind Division were very encouraging.”
Mendoza said from her very first phone call, the staff was always encouraging. Through the assistance of the vocational rehabilitation office and VR specialist Laurel Brier, Mendoza carved out a profession that expanded her capabilities and placed her into an environment that is conducive toward her limitations. “I work very part time, now,” Mendoza said. “If it wasn’t for them (the Kaua‘i VR staff), I wouldn’t be here today. I think I’m going to cry.”
Today, Mendoza is a giver, inviting someone who is ailing, grieving, or otherwise in need, to her home office for a very special facial. She invites her clients to relax, put asisde their troubles, and enjoy an hour of indulgence and healing, liberally seasoning the session with words of wisdom, kindness and gratitude. Karin Zoe Mendoza, left, accepts a state legislative commendation from state Rep. James Tokioka, D-15th District, Wednesday, after being announced as the Kaua‘i vocational rehabilitation Employee of the Year. Cordova said the VR department will continue to increase public awareness about the true capabilities of the department’s rehabilitants, promote positive attitudes and raise the bar of expectations held by the general public toward people with disabilities.