Page 23 - Energize November 2021

NEWS

Making inspection, repair, maintenance bread-and-butter work

hat do a leisure complex, Skyriders to provide its rope-access expertise.
a 50-storey skyscraper and Often called upon to conduct maintenance, repair and inspection services at large-scale
Wshopping centre and a major industrial structures such as smokestacks and petrochemical tanks, Skyriders has even
food-processing plant have in common? carried out general routine cleaning in inaccessible areas at a major food-processing plant.
These are all unusual projects where A six-person team oversaw the fast-track project over a two-day period, deploying high-
leading rope access specialist Skyriders pressure washers using food-safe detergent in order to adhere to the strict hygiene and
Access Specialists (Pty) Ltd. was called health and safety standards of the food and beverage industry.
upon to carry out a range of inspection, Skyriders offers a variety of rope-access aided services to numerous industries, such
repair and maintenance services. as power generation, petrochemical, mining, heavy industry and facilities management.
“This is a major growth area for These services include non-destructive testing (NDT) and inspection, concrete inspection,
us, especially as ordinary maintenance maintenance and repairs, application of coating systems, work at height safety systems,
schedules still have to be adhered to for welding, and confined space rescue and standby, to name but a few.
maximum productivity and efficiency,
despite the restrictions imposed by the Contact Mike Zinn, Skyriders, Phone: (011) 312-1418, mike@ropeaccess.co.za,
Covid-19 pandemic,” comments Marketing www.ropeaccess.co.za
Manager Mike Zinn.
Skyriders is able to field small, flexible
and dynamic teams that can offer a range
of services while being fully compliant
with all Covid-19 regulations. “Building
a massive scaffold structure takes
considerable labour, while rope access
only requires a small team. The same
applies to our drone department, where
a two-person team can visually inspect an
entire furnace area of a boiler without the
need for scaffolding,” notes Zinn.
While the Montecasino leisure
complex has its own maintenance team
and specialised contractors, it sometimes
encounters specific issues that require
work-at-height and confined-space
experience, which is where Skyriders’
expertise is best put to use.
Recent work it undertook at
Montecasino was to replace an anchor
system on a bell tower used to suspend
advertising banners. Due to wear-and-tear,
some of the anchors had started to come
loose and the whole system therefore had
to be inspected for safety reasons and to
mitigate any risk. Rope access meant that
this could be done simply without the
need for any extensive scaffolding.
A particularly tall feather in Skyriders’
cap was its work at the Carlton Centre
in downtown Johannesburg on behalf
of a third party tasked to carry out load
testing on four winches in the food court
area. However, the inaccessibility of the
winches posed a major challenge, and
subsequently the company partnered with

energize | November/December 2021 | 21