In addition to maintaining the roofs themselves, it is very often necessary to maintain the facades of buildings. Offering to maintain facades using the climbing method is easy – it is practicable, frequently done, but never that simple. For maintenance work when suspended, the priority is to have a fixed attachment above the site of the planned work. A roof is a ready option in this case. For functional and secure safety, two primary things (among others) must be provided – an attachment suitable for threading cable intended for long-term static loads, and some form of protection for the cable, when suspending a person, against abrasion/tearing due to movement over the edge of the roof.

The initial instinct is to use of the fall protection system that is already mounted on the roof, as this is required by law. However, this is generally NOT POSSIBLE! The reason? In their instructions, most cable attachment manufacturers strictly exclude any possibility of suspending people or objects from individual anchorage points. Most cable attachments designed solely to protect people against falling from heights are designed to absorb falls by deformation – thus they would also deform under static loads with less force, which could lead to failure either during the suspension or subsequently, if it were necessary to catch a fall.

In the case of needing to work while suspended, it is therefore necessary to provide the building with special protection designed for this purpose. Apart from these products, there are also products on the market that can be used both as fall protection and as a safety point for suspending a person. These products are specific and require a building to be structurally

Depending on the type of structure, there are anchor points with the following types of anchors:

• Anchor point with a base – a 150 × 150 mm base is fixed with 4 bolts to a concrete or steel beam
• Anchor point with a counter-nut – the anchor point rod has a thread, it is used only for fixing into a steel structure at least 5 mm thick
• Clamping anchor point – for load-bearing, cuboid-shaped structures made of wood, steel and concrete which can be clamped from the sides with a special mounting kit
• Anchor point with chemical anchor – into a hole pre-drilled in concrete

Due to different requirements compared to conventional fall protection systems (solid construction, complex requirements for deployment, etc.), it is necessary to inform the designer in advance when planning to use a fall protection system also for cable suspension work! Subsequent modification might not be possible, or at least would be very expensive.

Contact us for more information about using a fall protection system for cable suspension work, to have an overall design drawn up, or to order the individual elements yourself.