ROOFING, CLADDING & INSULATION
NEXT-GENERATION FACADE INSPECTION Under UK law, building owners and occupiers have a legal duty to ensure their building is safe to mitigate injury or damage being caused to people or property. Since 1994, all new and refurbished buildings are also required to have a maintenance manual, which must be kept up to date and any necessary maintenance work carried out. Paul McDevitt, Managing Director of TÜV SÜD Building Advisory Service, explains more.
to maintain a F ailure building facade properly may result in increased insurance premiums, difficulty in obtaining insurance renewals, or the termination of insurance cover. It is, therefore, vital that those responsible for a building’s maintenance and upkeep can demonstrate to insurers that all reasonable steps have been taken by implementing appropriate risk management procedures. This should include periodic facade inspection. The degree of facade inspection and maintenance that is required will depend on the materials used and its intended life. In the UK, BRE divides the necessary frequency of inspection into three categories:
1. Routine – continuous regular observations that should be undertaken by the user as part of the occupancy of the building
2. General – visual inspections of main elements
3. Detailed – a full inspection of the facade by a suitablyqualified person at times not exceeding a five-year period.
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Facade inspection is, therefore, an integral part of a building survey as it helps to verify the integrity of the building structure and ensures safety. However, conventional facade inspection usually requires roof access and involves the use of gondolas, all of which is time, labour and cost intensive. It is also highly disruptive for occupants and dangerous for inspectors due
to the difficulty of accessing high-rise buildings.
Optimising resource Many building owners will already have access to, or will have invested in, a facade access system for cleaning and other maintenance needs, such as checking lighting, photovoltaics, louvres and vents. A good facade maintenance solution should already optimise the
access equipment against the complexity of the building’s facade. Such systems include suspended platforms, roof trolleys and dedicated platforms, and mobile-elevated work platform. So, the question is, why can’t these systems also be used to provide detailed building surveys? For the outside of a building to maintain its aesthetic appeal, it must be regularly cleaned and maintained. Also, insurance warranties for facades usually mandate that cleaning and maintenance cycles remain unaffected. Economical and effective facade maintenance is, therefore, now a prime consideration within the overall building design process. So, existing facade maintenance systems cannot be diverted to dedicate time to more detailed survey work that could be easily completed by drones. Likewise, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires “employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of their employees and to ensure that those affected by their activities are not exposed to risk”.
