Mast Climber Used for Collection of Falling Objects

Mast climbers are used on this project instead of the traditional scaffolding to gain access for the permanent fixing of cladding and curtain wall systems to the face of a building.

The building is 13 stories high and the façade involves the fixing of large sheets of cladding and curtain walling. The mast climbers provide support for a platform which moves up the masts in order to fix the cladding. The cladding has a hinged mechanism fixed to the platform and is hinged toward the building to catch falling objects, however the site has identified that small objects can actually fall between the small gap left between the hinged fabric and the face of the building that is not caught by the fibre brushes which are designed to catch falling objects and therefore could cause harm when dropped from height.

The contractors engineers have designed a metal tray that bridges this small gap and catches small objects like screws and bolts used to secure the cladding system to the steel frame of the building. This is not required if the cladding was brickwork, as the brushes would catch these larger objects.

The metal trays can be made in any length to match the full size of the cladding panel thus eliminating any gaps at the edge or side of the panels. This system is being rolled out by the manufacturer of the mast climbers for use in similar circumstances.