Rope Access is More Than Simply Working at Height
Rope access is an innovative method for providing industrial services like smokestack repairs and chimney inspections. Developed in the early 90’s as a more effective way to perform maintenance on offshore vessels & rigs, rope access has recently made its way to onshore facilities and plants. When it comes to rope access for industrial facilities, there are a few misconceptions on the capabilities that rope access can provide. If you are a maintenance manager or project coordinator wondering if rope access will be effective for your site, consider the following: Approximately 70% of work-at-height projects range from 10-40 feet.
That’s right. While we work at extreme heights (over 100+ feet) for industrial chimney work & repairs, many of our jobs are simply in hard to reach areas or are projects that require a quick and simple solution. In many cases, speed and cost effectiveness are actually more of a determining factor for choosing rope access then simply the height of the structure. Scaffolding can take a team half a day to reach heights of 15 to 20 feet, but a professional rope access team can access that height & have the job completed in just a few hours.
Rope access is an extremely effective method for internal vessel and tank inspections, too. Our rope access crew has the ability to reach “inaccessible” spots without the use of scaffolding or heavy machinery. This is important for structures with floating roofs since most of these components cannot support the weight of scaffolding. Rope access allows our crew to provide an accurate inspection of a tank or vessel like this.
Scaffolding can also be extremely dangerous for crew members working in fall arrest. By eliminating the need to erect scaffold, we are able to minimize the risk of a scaffold crew member falling from height while working in fall arrest. This is statistically one of the riskier work-at-height tasks. A rope access system, on the other hand, can be viewed more like suspending a load (in this case a crew member) opposed to seen as a fall arrest system. Plus, rope access comes with a rescue plan built in to the anchoring system. In fact, rope access as a whole has an impressive safety record that is unrivaled by other industrial maintenance methods.
One of the best benefits of rope access techniques is the cost savings and lower maintenance budget requirements. Cost savings tend to be on a sliding scale, where the taller the structure – the more savings you will see. Even at smaller heights, real savings can be seen by faster completion of projects and less down time which can end up costing a facility quite a bit.
Industrial Access has been perfecting rope access methods for industrial service & maintenance for over a decade. Speak with our crew of professional rope access workmen and engineers to find out how we can create a quick and cost-effective solution to your industrial service needs.