Provisional figures on the HSE website state that, in the year 2007/2008, 58 people died from a fall from height at work, making this the main cause of workplace fatalities.
With an estimated 3m people working at height as part of their job, it is impossible to completely eliminate the danger, but the HSE nonetheless advises that staff should avoid working at height wherever possible by using different equipment or work methods.
Mila Maintenance prides itself on its ability to offer clients a simple window and door maintenance solution which extends to the issue of working at height and minimising these risks.
Although its highly trained teams are qualified to work safely as high as 30 storeys, Mila is keen to demonstrate to clients that there are often simpler, safer and, in most cases, cheaper solutions.
Dave Cooke, Project Director for Mila Maintenance, says: “Clients often think there is no alternative to using ladders or scaffolding but our extensive experience over more than 20 years has enabled us to develop a whole range of practical, alternative solutions.”
This has been demonstrated for clients throughout the social housing sector including most recently for Trafford Housing Trust, where Mila Maintenance is providing a preventative maintenance service for the fully reversible windows in nearly 3000 flats in 12 high rise blocks.
Conventionally, contractors would fix mass climbers or hanging cradles to each external elevation on the flats to work from the outside on window maintenance. However, Mila Maintenance has been able to source an ‘Eazi Lifter’ window hoist which enables its engineers to work effectively from inside each flat, safely anchoring the opening sashes so that they can be brought inside to enable any necessary repair or maintenance to be carried out.
The Eazi Lifter solution has saved Trafford Housing Trust’s Regeneration Team a substantial sum on access costs which in turn it has been able to reinvest in the overall maintenance programme.
Mila’s commitment to customer service means that its on-site team always liaise effectively with the tenants regarding access and the feedback on the speed, tidiness and politeness of their service has been excellent.
Similarly, at Atholl House, a DTI managed building owned by Network Rail, Mila Maintenance completed an 18 week programme to repair and refurbish more than 700 aluminium, vertical sliding windows bringing them up to modern standards in terms of performance, energy efficiency, safety and security.
Orthodox access methods such as scaffolding or mast climbers were not feasible because the building is tightly enclosed by a main road, an electrified railway line and a car park.
Mila Maintenance therefore recommended that the work should be carried out from the inside while the building was encapsulated with ultra strong safety netting to provide protection against any materials falling outside.
95% of the maintenance work took place outside of office hours with the Mila tam working from 6pm to 5am so that disruption to the staff working in the building was minimised.
The project was completed two weeks ahead of schedule and saved an estimated £3m over the cost of window replacement.
Further details on Mila Maintenance’s solutions for clients across the public sector are available at www.milamaintenance.co.uk