Site Monitoring
Why
Most facade risk hides high up and on the outside. A traditional inspection relies on the naked eye and binoculars, which only covers so much. We add aerial drones, so the exposed high levels and the blind spots come under monitoring as well.
-
Hidden at height
Looking up from the ground, the inside of the scaffold, the eaves and the finishes high up are all hidden from view.
-
Blind spots in the walk-round
A manual inspection only covers that day's route; anything missed has to wait for the next round before it can be seen.
-
Records hard to trace
A verbal report carries no image, so there is no way afterwards to tell when or where a problem started.
Capabilities
One set of imagery serves two purposes at once — progress and safety. Positions that used to need scaffolding or a gondola to reach now have a record at regular intervals.
-
Progress monitoring
The facade is filmed by drone at set intervals and checked against the drawings and the programme. What is actually complete is plain to see, lagging sections are caught early, and labour and sequence can be adjusted straight away.
-
Safety monitoring
Aerial footage covers the high levels and blind spots that a walk-round cannot: scaffold, lifting operations and open edges are all visible in one frame. A potential risk is followed up at once, instead of waiting for an inspection to pass by.
Method
The flight itself is not the point. Imagery has to be archived, compared and acted on before it becomes a basis for adjusting the works.
- Scheduled flights The filming interval is set by how dense the work is, and stepped up during high-risk stages.
- Archived imagery Each shoot is archived by date and location, so one round can be compared with the next.
- Issues marked up Risks found are marked on the image, with their location and follow-up status.
- Fed back into the works Findings go back to site management, which adjusts inspection priorities and the sequence of work.
The full inspection and sign-off sequence is set out in Site Safety; work at height can also draw on Gondola Services.