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Comment by nothrowaway | Hacker News Reader

If anyone is wondering how he got the ladders up the side of the chimney in the first place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0C57orM1s&t=10m25s

I rediscovered Fred on YouTube a couple of years ago, and spent far too much time watching pretty much everything I could find.

As the title suggests, watching the overhang climb in this is enough to make you feel dizzy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3-YwDZrzg

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Wow. Can't believe I've never seen that overhang climb video before. Found it hard to watch - I just can't imagine doing anything like that. But extremely impressive.

And 50 years old as well. He just looks like a tubby little fellow but I bet he's hard as nails under the overall.

I'm a little surprised that there weren't permanent ladders, or at least the gear to attach ladders, as a feature of the chimney. The cost of a dozen ladders and some bolts would be a few hundred pounds (in modern terms) compared to the thousands you'd pay a person to 'ladder up' a chimney before it could be worked on.

I wonder if they'd degrade to the point where they were no longer trustworthy? If we're talking about decades and decades which it seems like we are then at some point you'd maybe end up having to repair/maintain the ladder/access bolts as well as the tower itself.

There are steps on telegraph poles above a certain point - the wooden ones at least. Modern metal ones have signs that forbid the use of ladders and they end up using cherry pickers - which seems a bit backwards in an odd sort of a way.

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