OT: Alternative to scaffolding?

[GB]

My son lives in a 6/7 storey block of flats. the exterior needs some work, eg some spalling bricks removed, some minor concrete repairs. The estimated cost of the repairs is £10k, whilst the scaffolding is estimated at over £30k. Is there any alternative to scaffolding that is markedly cheaper? Are cradles allowed these days? It wouldn't matter if the working costs were doubled if the scaffolding costs could be reduced by half. It would still be cheaper overall.

[Dave Osborne]

[fred]

In article , GB writes

Rope Access is a term worth googling for, should be ok for relatively minor repairs. Brick replacement may cause problems due to difficulty in gaining purchase to hack out the spalled ones.

Here's the UK trade association:

[GB]

than a cradle? Safer?

[fred]

When you said cradle I mistakenly thought bosuns chair so jumped to rope access. By cradle do you mean a cable suspended work platform such as high building window cleaners use?

The benefit of pure rope access would be ease of setup and low equipment cost but the cradle would make a more stable platform for more serious work provided the roof was compatible.

I've seen both in use on a building of the height you describe with rope access being used to test and mark damaged areas with repairs being made from a suspended platform.

[martin_pentreath]

I've had the scaffolding dilemma before. Can anyone explain how the price can be so high? How much does it cost the scaffolding company to buy some metal poles? They presumably last roughly forever anyway. I would assume that the whole thing is rigged, but it's a competitive market like any other, so how do they keep prices so high?

[Stuart Noble]

Who does your son pay his annual maintenance charge to? If there's a residents association, they can shop around for a better deal. If it's jobbed out to a "property company", they may have you over a barrel, both in terms of what needs doing, and the price each flat has to pay.

[Dave Liquorice]

I should imagine a significant proportion of the charge is insurance. If the scaffold collapses, landing on a few cars, maybe taking a bit of the building or a neigboring one with it or even some people the damages that the company would be liable for will quickly reach into the millions...

[Clot]

[Gordon Henderson]

Driving into Exeter today - traffic was crawling and I was later told it was due to some scaffoling collapsing - onto some cars!

Ah, looks like A dozen or so:

[GB]

The freehold's owned by the residents. This was just a surveyor's report, but I wanted to try to understand why the scaffolding was estimated to be roughly 75% of the total cost.

[fred]

Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it isn't, these days I balance the cost of my time in managing the sourcing of alternative quotes vs the saving divided by the number of (usually indifferent) residents. Half the time I walk away and pay the inflated cost / x as the easy option.

Depending on the number of residents in your son's place, it may be worth it.

[gunsmith]

Perhaps he should sell the flat pronto!