Working at height can mean a number of activities, depending on the project. Your construction team may be renovating the facade of an older building, painting a house or carrying out work on the interior of a large assembly hall. All of these projects will probably require a thoughtful scaffolding solution, but there may be more to it. In this post, we take a look at the preparations that need to be made if you need to use other equipment when working at height on scaffolding.
Before work ever begins, you’ll need to determine what kind of scaffolding is required for the job. If you are working indoors in a large area like an assembly or performance hall, you may need suspended scaffolding or you might be able to get away with a tower. However, you also need to take into account what the project actually is. If it’s a heavy duty remodel, your workers may need power tools or other large equipment. In this case, you need to think about how you’re going to get the equipment up to them. It may be that you have to rethink the type of scaffolding used completely.
The same general exercise applies to exterior works. If your team need to use heavy equipment at height, your scaffolding needs to be sturdy and strong enough to match. It may be that double scaffolding is necessary.
For lifting the equipment into place, you have two broad options: hoists, and transport platforms.
In the event that you need to bring large amounts of material and equipment to your workers at height, you may need a separate scaffolding to manage the weight itself. But it’s a worthwhile effort - a transport platform can lift up to 2,000 kilos in a single trip. For a large scale project, this kind of power is hard to argue with. It can also be used to ferry your team up to where they need to be, saving them time and saving you labour costs, since they don’t have to waste time ascending and descending several storeys every day.
The particulars of your project may mean making some sacrifices and compromises over how fast the work can be carried out. If there isn’t room for a transport platform or a stronger type of scaffolding, you may need to settle for using a hoist to get your equipment to the right height. But these are delays worth making to ensure the safety of your workers and the quality of work they are able to carry out.
Like most scaffolding issues, the questions of how to get your equipment to where it needs to be and what type of scaffolding is necessary for the use of that equipment at height are best answered by a scaffolding professional. Our team of experts will identify a bespoke and appropriate scaffolding system that complements your project and enables your workers. Get in touch today to find out more, or take a look at some of our previous work in the projects section.