Movetech UK’s cracking solution

News

Movetech UK provides an innovative solution to assist maintenance workers access to the upper levels of an internal atrium.

A building maintenance team had been plagued by problems of cracking expensive floor tiles when gaining personnel access to the upper internal levels of the atrium for maintenance such as changing light bulbs, window cleaning, ceiling repairs, etc.

For high level access they used a 4 wheel access spider weighing approximately 3.5 tonnes but unfortunately, the magnificent-looking atrium floor below wasn’t strong enough to support this sort of machinery, resulting in the floor tiles cracking. To make matters worse, under floor heating lay just millimetres below the tiles, so the repair costs were potentially burdensome and severely limited access to the higher levels.

They turned to the movement solutions experts at Movetech UK for help. Movetech UK designed and manufactured a purpose built transport system using Hovair™ technology which carries the access spider through the atrium on a cushion of air without damaging the floor beneath.

Movetech UK’s Technical Director David Houghton explained: “We have had a lot of experience with this type of problem. Often planters need to be moved for maintenance access, and as these can weigh up to around 1 tonnes, we came up with a solution which enabled them to be manoeuvred using Hovair™ MAB Technology without fear of cracking the tiles.”

“The company we worked with, also wanted easy access to more of the atrium. Although the purchase of a spider-legged lift allowed them high level personnel maintenance access unfortunately, it damaged the expensive floor. We devised this new system to carry the access spider which not only carries its weight without damaging the floor, but it can be moved around the building readily and manually, meaning there’s now no area they can’t access with ease.”

Designed for portability and assembly in the atrium when needed the Movetech UK Hovair™ system had to be of a size, and weight, for ease of manual handling through a variety of ‘nip’ points”.

A spokesperson for the company which maintains the building, said: “The Movetech UK solution has proved highly successful. We can now move our equipment around the building with great success.

“The whole assembly process, from start to finish, took just two hours and we were able to give a demonstration which allowed all the window cleaners to fully understand it straight away. We have access to new areas and don’t need to worry that we are damaging our expensive floor. This has been a great solution.”

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