Uniline Safety Systems is a leading international manufacturer of fall protection products and fall arrest systems

Facade access and facade access equipment

Façade access requirements come in many varieties and present many challenges. Some buildings have powered access cradles for facade access, some can be cleaned from the ground, some use access hoists and many windows can be cleaned from inside the building. In more recent years rope access techniques have been used for facade access and are generally considered to be very safe, providing the worker has been trained and is using all the correct height safety equipment.

In nearly all cases, façade access and maintenance requires the worker to be exposed to working at height risks and therefore, to use some form of height safety equipment and be attached to an anchor point.

Capital has undertaken many projects to enable workers easy facade access for the maintenance of building facades. These include simple eyebolt installations to allow workers to clean a window, to complex continuous anchorage solutions that allow suspended access for complete internal and external façade cleaning and building maintenance tasks.

In new building projects Capital can assist Architects in the integration of appropriate facade access solutions at an early stage. The later the inclusion of safety and access is left in the building design process, the harder it is to integrate, although for Capital we have been able to resolve some of the toughest challenges for customers. We recently assisted renowned architect, Santiago Calatrava, solve access problems at the amazing Agora (City of Arts & Sciences) in Valencia, Spain.