Innovate to Insulate
Posted by Stephen Millward, 12 October 2009 14:31:10
I went to see some cavity wall insulation being installed today! Not very exciting is it? Or is it?
I visited a project we are supporting through our CERT programme in the London Borough of Camden where they are pioneering an innovative way of installing cavity wall insulation by abseiling! Yes, I did say abseiling.
A team of highly trained and qualified abseilers are carrying out cavity wall insulation to Camden tower blocks over 6 storeys high. The work would have traditionally been carried out via the use of scaffolding, assuming it would be carried out at all!
Seeing guys hanging from ropes carrying out a somewhat complex process of drilling, filling and sealing all whilst requiring the equipment to be hanging off them at the same time was impressive to watch. They made it look so easy from where I was standing…yes at ground level.
Using the traditional method of scaffolding a block of flats and then installing insulation would take (on this occasion) about 6 weeks. Using abseilers they will be on and off site quicker than it takes to set the scaffolding up in the first place.
The effect of this is that not only does the work get completed quicker, it also costs approx 40% less and this has enabled Camden to be able to focus on the properties that up til now had been left due to the high costs of improvement; the high rise blocks of which there are many.
So an insulator trained to abseil or an abseiler trained to insulate? It’s the latter and the reason for that? …..6 years training! It takes on average 6 years for an abseiler to become fully qualified to carry out a range of construction type work and about 6 weeks to train to become a cavity wall installer!
Nevertheless, as this was ground breaking work, the first of its kind in the UK, it took a while for all the Methodology, Risk Assessment, Health & Safety and Technical requirements to be set in place.
They started off on a baby block of only 10 storeys; I’m looking forward to when they move on to the 20 storey blocks!!