Facade Access Systems-Eye Bolts for providing Facade Maintenance Services

The facade of the building or a high rise building needs to be maintained periodically to protect, prevent and enhance the performance of the facade. Now the question is, how do you even access the facade in the first place, to maintain it? Generally the options available for accessing the facade are the following:

• Through Industrial Rope Access System and
• Through Cradle anchored to the Terrace Rigs

Though there a few more systems like Booms, Scissor lifts & Scaffoldings etc. However we chose not to discuss the same here, as these systems are hardly of any use in accessing large facades, due to its redundancy.

Now the decision making is pretty easy, either we have to choose a Cradle or Industrial Rope Access System.

Cradle: Choosing a cradle may require us to create an additional system in the terrace called Terrace Rigs that has to be moved either manually or through a monorail. Any system including the cradle is capital and maintenance intensive. The ease and quickness of accessing the facade is greatly affected by the time taken to install and move cradles from one location to another. Cleaning coverage depends much on the platform size, there should be repetitive cycles of movements of cradles, to complete one facade rotation, as a result of all these shortcomings, the efficiency of facade maintenance are greatly affected when done through cradles.

Cradles are better suited for lifting man along with materials like glass, ACP & other facade materials, to the position when there is enough time, budget and a reckless attitude towards durability of facade materials and facade maintenance.

A few facility managers do not care much about the facade going for a toss or not keen on getting the facade cleaned 4 times a year to save the facade. This generally happens, when the facility managers are too obsessed about the safety and think cradle is safe over the industrial rope access, by sheer look of the system in form and shape, without applying thought and introspection. In reality it is other way round, by the time they realize, it too late.

If you are a facility manager reading this page, you should either be happy of making a decision to go with rope access, as you have saved in millions for your employer or worry realizing this fact little too late, as your own experience will support my statement, should you go a deep down backwards in your career and think about the facades, that you maintained and were you able to take up all 4 services in a year, when facades were accessed through cradles?

Industrial rope access systems: When used for accessing the facades, the work is completed in much lesser time and hence the cost it economical.

Eye Bolts: The ropes can be anchored to the existing columns, beams or any other solid structures that are available in the terrace. In case, if the terrace does not have these existing structures, we can simply create a twin eye bolts at a spacing of every 6 feet. This allows the rope access professionals to anchor at any location, any time and create the required work positioning to access the facade and thereafter clean that particular location, in less than 1 hour for a 12 storey building.

The eye bolts are the most economical facade access system made up of mild steel or SS and chemically fastened to the RCC by using epoxies chemicals of Fischer or Hilti, after structurally designing the same and checking the reactions.

To make it even more foolproof, the eye bolts can be checked for its durability and safety by pullout tests. Eye bolts are customized, designed structurally and contoured for achieving desired results.

We advice, only for eye bolts as one and only facade access system for facade maintenance services, as we only practice what we preach and vice versa.

Should you need? Facade Access Systems-Eye bolts to access the facades, please contact Glass Hoppers.