Gardiner Pole Systems is probably one of the best known brands here in the UK for water fed poles and accessories. It certainly tops the popularity charts with UK window cleaners. The brand is also rapidly growing in the US and European markets – so then, why is this brand of telescopic poles growing so much in popularity and considered to be the ‘go to’ pole? Part of this must be down to the Gardiner Smart Clamps that recently were granted a UK Patent. Gardiner Smart Clamps come fitted as standard to every Gardiner brand telescopic pole sold since 2013 and are also available as an upgrade to older poles.
What makes them so good? Because they have successfully solved a reoccurring issue facing high use telescopic pole users. A common problem, as any window cleaners using composite material poles will know, is that when wear starts on the outer surface of a section it is never evenly across the whole surface of the pole. This creates low spots that lead to spinning sections when clamped. Previous Gardiner poles and every other brand of poles have suffered this problem with no resolution in sight. A pole would have to be rebuilt or sections replaced simply because one part of the section had worn by half a millimetre more than the rest of the pole – very annoying, time wasting and costly.
How did the Gardiner Smart Clamps resolve this? The Gardiner Smart clamp mechanism features a compactly packaged auto-adjustment tension spring that allows the clamps to adjust the clamp jaw position without the need to adjust manually the tension of the whole lever mechanism. Put simply for us window cleaners this means that once adjusted, the clamp will easily clamp and close on unworn sections of the tubes surface, but when needing to be clamped firmly on a heavily worn area (such as in the closed position where poles are generally clamped up most often) they will still clamp and hold the section with the same simple lever closing action.
Is there any other benefits to these clamps? Technically the design allows for the use of thinner wall composite sections compared to comparative poles on the market – the clamp is not relying on a thick wall section to resist the effects of tight clamping on section wear areas. This is why Gardiner poles are so light and last so long – this might explain why seemingly every other window cleaner you meet is using one! The compact design of the mechanism also means that despite being ‘self-adjusting’ these clamps take up less length on the pole leading to improved packaging.
So they appear to help compensate for worn areas on the pole, but do they help reduce overall wear rate of the pole? Evidence shows that it has helped prolong the pole section life as well. The device maintains the optimum level of tension on the clamped section surface – not too tight causing damage to the thin wall section or too loose which increases the twisting abrasion action on the section. The poles last longer and clamp so much more easily and smoothly through the life of the pole. Traditionally telescopic composite poles would become a struggle to work with, sometimes after just 6 months of regular use, whereas the Smart Clamp equipped poles continue to work easily throughout the life of the pole.
In conclusion if you have not had the chance to try out a Gardiner Smart Clamp pole – where have you been? Give one a try and you will find an easier, more reliable and smarter pole solution than has been previously experienced.
