Be it in industry, masonry or engineering, the development of increasingly complex and high structures makes it difficult to maintain or clean buildings. New necessities are incited by these sometimes unconventional human constructions, such as rope work, scaffolding, even the cleaning of silos or industrial chimneys. IRATA or CQP (Profit Qualification Certificate), the climbers’ training have thus been developed in order to guarantee safety and professionalism for these rope access works.
Let us perform an overview of the issues that today require the action of these modern time mountaineers.
Climbing on cliffs or on mountains can sometimes be a lot easier than climbing on smooth vertical surfaces such as buildings and skyscrapers. The climbers who progress in these environments then perform a real professional civil engineering mountaineering service. Working at height in public works activities initially consists of cliff protection (mining, reinforcement by anchoring, laying of fences) with the aim of avoiding erosion, or in the construction of studded walls to support highways, to prevent natural hazards such as landslides, subsidence and other mountain landslides… But the need for work at height has accelerated at the same time as Human constructions. The installation of gutters, facades, building windows or the installation of anti-pigeon systems, are all difficult access works that today require cradle, scaffolding or rope access. The installation of zinc works, roofs or skylights are examples that require the use of certified acrobats, with the accreditation and certification to work at height or in the void.
In industry, the cleaning of factories, especially any work involving silos’ and hoppers’ operation can take on huge proportions. Clogging problems are numerous and very restrictive because at best they reduce the storage capacity of these structures, but in the worst case they prevent the flow of material and completely stop the production process (cement plugs, wood particles bridging, soda rat-hotling …). The climbers are also therefore requested to perform cleaning services for unclogging these structures, which give rise to complex operations because in confined or closed environments, being in an explosive atmosphere zone (ATEX), the risk of breathing toxic materials or ending up in a collapsed material are present. Tragic stories related to these phenomena testify to the danger the people are in when operating inside these structures.
With the aim of eliminating concretions from silos and hoppers, The International Industry Standard proposes solutions such as Gironet and Powernet which eliminate any risk for operators as the operations are done without human intervention inside the structures for cleaning, for a completely safe and return to 100% storage capacity. To recover the unclogged materials, the International Industry Standard also offers vacuum cleaning, the materials can be recored in the production process or be discharged in landfills.