Facade Inspection

Facade Inspections
from Land, Sky + Ropes

Inspecting facades from land, sky and ropes! Most large cities across the nation have ordinances requiring periodic envelope inspections of buildings, particularly close-up, hands-on reviews of taller street-facing facades to maintain safety and ensure proper repair and maintenance. McLaren recently performed detailed facade inspections, getting a full-picture story of the building’s envelope health using binoculars, drones, and rope drops.

Our in-house SPRAT Level 1 certified rope access engineers, dropped down for a 300’ rappel from the roof, supervised by BNW’s SPRAT Level 3 riggers. Conducting hands-on facade inspections via rope is not only more adrenaline pumping, but also more efficient and less expensive than traditional scaffold-drop inspections from a motorized rig. To help, inspectors on the ground used binoculars to scan the facade wall and from the sky, drones provided an additional cross-reference detailed view, taking high-definition photographs (40 megapixel from close range) of the entire building envelope. Y Bird Airways operated the inspection drones and post-processed them to create a composite photo catalog of the building. The technique allowed inspectors to zoom in on areas of concern that were not accessible during rope drop operations, helping piece together an accurate, multi-angle building envelope investigation.