Rope Access Techniques to Scale Silo for Maintenance

TAI’s site safety and maintenance services were deployed to surface prep, seal and coat the exterior surface of two bulk storage silos for a client in New Castle, DE. After considering options that including assembling scaffolding or utilizing lifts or ladders to perform the work on the vertical walls’ tight confines alongside the building, the TAI team proposed an economical option utilizing specialized scaling equipment of climbing body harnesses, climbing ropes as lanyards, rappel devices (descenders) and carabiners.

TAI’s trained technicians and assigned subcontractors proceeded with the following:

• Power washing the silos’ surfaces;
• Applying spot coatings of epoxy mastic to all silo assembly fasteners;
• Applying epoxy primer mastic coating to the entirety of the silos’ exteriors; and
• Applying a catalyzed urethane gloss topcoat finish to the silos.

The teams’ approach to professionally and safely design the work approach and execute according to plan resulted in the completion of this project within six working days, incident-free.

TAI’s safety team is comprised of fire fighters and other experts in safety to be able to access tanks, silos, and other structures that require roping, safety harnessing and other manual labor techniques to access hard-to-reach spaces.

TAI also provides specialized response to post-fire damage in silos and bulk storage containers, including coal, sawdust and grain storage. We provide professional fire watch and brigade teams while clean-up, burning, welding and other operations are on-going within the hazardous confined spaces. TAI’s Confined Space Rescue Standby is offered for industrial jobs to help facilities maintain compliance with OSHA 1910.146 by providing the necessary equipment and trained personnel.