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c&a mastclimbers Mastclimber usage for cladding work is not as widespread as one Scaffold might expect what scaffold? The mastclimbing work platform is, by definition, powered access and yet it sits uneasily alongside booms and scissors. In the early days a number of powered access rental companies dived into the business and sooner or later regretted it. The fact is that while level and a basement level below. solving the potential security mastclimbers are powered, they fit much All of the shortlisted painting problems, stepped up the work pace contractors quoted for the work and been safer overall (ladders more comfortably alongside their principle with a full façade scaffold itemised were used for access). This is an all competition - façade or contract scaffold. separately at £22,500 and above. too common reaction and reinforces the comments made by Joy Jones Apart from the very smallest The odd thing is that while the use As the tenants/owners of the apartments are charged by the of the HSE in our article on this towable models, which have yet of mastclimbers has grown steadily year's IPAF summit, in which she to catch on, mastclimber rental or both in Europe and North America, housing association for the work, the successful bid was circulated says that most contractors have no contracting requires a great deal market penetration is still patchy, clue about specifying the right type of knowledge and engineering both geographically and in terms of prior to it being accepted. When an alternative form of access was of access equipment and tend to ability, not to mention efficient applications. Mastclimbers are stay with what they know. logistics and erection skills. increasingly being used for tricky suggested - a couple of boom lifts The fact is that particularly for larger The positive aspect of this for jobs or where their unique abilities or a mastclimber for example - it jobs, mastclimbers can dramatically rental companies is that clients of being able to lift materials as well was dismissed, based on the fact reduce the cost of the job while are prepared to pay for that as provide a perfect work platform, that it was not practical, let alone offering other benefits such as being know-how and experience - are particular requirements. When it cost effective. Neither the aesthetically more attractive during the intellectual capability of comes to bog-standard façade work contractor nor the client would even the contract, reducing the amount of the supplier. though most contractors will still consider the option even though tend to default to scaffolding. a relatively small and simple climbing to the work zone, greater A mastclimber at In some places that may even be mastclimber installation would have levels of safety and can save the work in a typical been ideal for the job as well as rental of a separate hoist. renovation job to the most traditional form of scaffolding, such as tube and An interesting application involving fitting or bamboo, both of which a special twin mast transport require a great deal of labour and mastclimber, a regular hoist a high level of specialist skill to do and a twin tower mastclimber - note how little affected the well. That combination of hard building appearance physical work and high levels of is compared to full experience and knowledge is scaffold cover becoming increasingly hard to source so it is surprising that these forms of access remain competitive. What is even more puzzling is that even large and sophisticated contractors appear to be oblivious to the cost and convenience benefits of mastclimbers for routine work where scaffold is currently used. Take the recent case involved the repainting the windows and some minor façade repairs on a historic five story Georgian apartment building in the UK. The façades included four floors above street April 2010 cranes & access 23 mastclimbers c&a Mastclimbers can be adapted to fit all manner of shapes. Mastclimbers are also considerably safer to erect - something that safety authorities are increasingly The one metre cantilever extension provides access focusing on and are faster and less into the building as well as allowing the contractor to working into the corners expensive to put up. At night and weekends the platform can be disabled to prevent potential intruders climbing it to reach upper floors and finally it is less prone to wind damage. Every year in every Double decker country there are numerous cases of large expanses of façade scaffold collapsing into the street in the face of strong winds. does the Lofts In the UK it is estimated that there The mast sits neatly away from the cladding bars A 90 metre high single mast are between 2,000 and 2,500 dual platform mastclimbing mastclimbers at work, possibly work platform has proved ideal fewer than in several smaller for all façade works on a 32 markets where mastclimbers have storey new build structure in already become more mainstream, Sheffield, England. City Lofts is such as Holland, Sweden and other located in St Paul's and will be parts of Scandinavia. For another the tallest tower in Sheffield, comparison there are estimated to designed specifically as an be around 14 to 16,000 units in iconic landmark for the city North America which has a slightly centre. When completed it will better penetration level, although it incorporate some 22,000 square varies enormously from state to feet/2,100 square metres of state. After a few years of strong retail and restaurant space, as growth, mastclimber adoption has well as 316 one and two slowed, although much of this is due bedroom apartments, set in to the fall in high rise construction. two interlinking 12 and 32 Most mastclimber rental storey towers. contractors are currently running The mastclimber has been The 90 metre mast with utilisation rates of around 50 supplied by the Brogan Group for percent, although feedback is fitted with two platforms in order main contractor Shepherd largely suggests that rates have held up to maximise for cladding works. It includes the better than in the aerial lift market productivity supply and erection of two and most companies we spoke to separate mastclimbing platforms are still making a modest profit. running on a single 90 metre high With pressure on contract prices mast. Both mastclimber platforms contractors ought to be are fitted with two metre high investigating the adoption of more guard rails and edge protection. efficient methods of working which The lower platform is also fitted would, one assumes, provide an with an overhead 'roof' protection. opportunity for mastclimbing Both platforms were also companies. And yet the opposite equipped with one metre wrap seems to be the case, with around cantilever extensions on contractors now afraid to try what one end to allow access into the they don't know! There is surely a building and for works to be case for the industry to do carried out to the corners of the something here to spread the word. building. 24 cranes & access April 2010 Built-in glass positioner boosts productivity Harsco Infrastructure helped contractors speed up the construction of a Grade A commercial development in the heart of Glasgow last year. Two, West Regent Street is a high-specification 10-storey mixed-use development comprising nine floors of office accommodation above ground floor retail units. In order to achieve efficient progress on the construction programme, main contractor Taylor Woodrow needed to find an external access system that would assist with the rapid installation of the building's glass curtain-walling façade, without monopolising the site's tower crane. The company approached Harsco, (SGB as it was then) which devised a solution using nine mast-climbing work platforms, five of which were specially modified with a custom-made monorail system designed to lift and position the glass panels against the building's 50 metre high façade. Working closely with Taylor Woodrow, Harsco engineers attached the horizontal monorail to the top of each pair of mast towers. An electric winch, was then mounted to an under-slung trolley that ran along the monorail, a vacuum lifting device was then connected to the hoist line of the remote controlled winch to handle the glass panels. “The system provided us with the equivalent of five cranes” An additional advantage of the monorail system is that it can continue operating in wind-speeds well above that which shuts down the tower cranes on site. Using the system saved approximately four weeks in the cladding schedule. “The monorail system effectively provided us with the equivalent of five cranes, which has meant we could really speed up work on site,” said Mike King, project manager with Taylor Woodrow. “We were therefore able to maximise installation of large glass units on multiple work faces which would otherwise have solely relied on the tower crane thereby limiting the amount of labour we could use.” “The combination of the monorail with the mast-climbing work platform helped us get early completion of the building envelope and improve productivity by up to 300 percent. The system itself is far quicker to install than traditional scaffolding, in this case it took only about a week to install, whereas scaffolding would have taken three or even four weeks.” The monorail glass handling system in action April 2010 cranes & access 25 mastclimbers c&a The full Monty Merchant Square is new mixed- and three levels of basement A single mast 40 metre high The West elevation material and use building project in Paddington parking. Brogan was called in to mastclimber runs from the first floor, passenger hoist runs from the London which encompasses six supply and erect scaffolding to leaving the ground floor unobstructed.

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