Powered Aerial Access Platforms

For the past 6 weeks our neighbours have had a crew on site every day working on their complex century-old mansard roof.

Being cooperative neighbours, we’ve traded our driveway for their garage so that the crew can have room to work. 

The room they need has been primarily for lifts like this one:

This Genie Boom is, I’ve learned, one example of a “Powered Aerial Access Platform,” and we’ve heard its beep-beep-beep sound, every time it moves somewhere, so frequently as to almost be habituated to it.

You see these “PAAPs” all over town these days: our Queen Square neighbourhood has been a hotbed of construction activity since the Province House conservation started a decade ago;  with that, and the Daniel J. MacDonald building gutting, the Confederation Centre of the Arts renovations, one is seldom safe from the beep-beep-beep.

I got curious about what seems to be the sudden transformation of construction-at-height from using scaffolding to using these machines, and I found some insight in Powered Aerial Access Platforms (PAAPs): Their Use and Benefits, from CIB World Building Congress 2007, which describes their deployment in South Africa:

Enhanced access, enhanced productivity, maneuverability, and enhanced safety predominate among benefits resulting from using PAAPs in lieu of other access, such as scaffold platforms and ladders. Enhanced worker satisfaction, overall cost savings, and enhanced client satisfaction were identified by between 33 % and 40 % of respondents. Slightly more than a quarter of respondents identified enhanced stability, hassle-free work, and lifting of materials and equipment.

A more recent reference, from a not-unbiased vendor, CMC, The Impact of Aerial Platforms on Working at Height:

Technological evolution has radically transformed how works are carried out off the ground. Whereas in the past the use of scaffoldings was the norm, today, the advent of aerial work platforms has revolutionised the industry, significantly enhancing efficiency and safety. In particular, aerial work platforms offer a combination of flexibility, swiftness and safety, which are key elements to increasing productivity and reducing operating costs.

A check of the local market showed that I could rent a PAAP for about $2500 a month, which seems cheap given the labour it saves compared to the cost of erecting and dismantling scaffolding, to say nothing of its ability to heft heavy things up and down.