Rope Access

Industrial rope access, done by riggers

Rope access puts a technician at a single point on a structure without building a scaffold or booking a crane. At Industrial Site Services the rope access team sits inside the rigging division, so the person on the rope is a rigger first, which is why jobs grow. A call to change a light bulb at Seddon Park ended with the 50 m lighting towers replaced.

We run rope access from Te Rapa in Hamilton and go wherever the job is in New Zealand.

What we do on ropes

• Industrial abseiling: getting a technician onto the structure by rope for any of the jobs below.
• Inspection at height: light masts, stacks, tower members and structural steel, the parts that cost a lot to scaffold for a short look.
• Welding and repair at height: Seddon Park's lighting towers were welded by rope access before they were replaced.
• Rigging from ropes: at FMG Stadium the rope access team installed the replacement roof tie rods while temporary works held the roof, and the stadium was usable on Super Rugby Aotearoa match days.
• Access where nothing can be climbed: Seddon Park's old lighting towers were derigged by rope when there was no normal way up them.
• Rope rescue systems, as supplied on the Seddon Park towers, and confined space entry monitoring and rescue, as on the Mighty River Power weir gate lift.

How a rope access job runs

1. Tell us what's up there. Photos, drawings or a site visit. We do ropes, scaffold and cranes, so we'll tell you which one the job needs rather than which one we'd rather sell.
2. We plan the access and the rescue. Access plan, rescue plan, permits and inductions, under our ISO 45001:2018 health and safety system. Certificates are on the Health & Safety page.
3. The crew does the work. If the repair turns out to need more than ropes, the rigging, scaffolding and engineering crews are the same company, so the job carries on instead of waiting for another contractor.

When rope access is the wrong tool

Ropes suit inspection, short repairs and awkward single points. If the job needs a work platform, materials stacked at height, or more than a couple of people, it needs a scaffold, and we'll say so. If the whole structure has to come down or go up, it's a rigging and crane job. We do all three, so we have no reason to push one.

Our rope access technicians hold qualifications ranging from basic to advanced certificates, and many of them have been on ropes and rigging since the day they left school.