CHTMAG.COM WORKING AT HEIGHT FEATURE Premier league football club Stoke City is regularly home to over 28,000 fans. The Potters are the second oldest professional football club in the world and the stadium also includes a second football pitch sized training academy in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire With a reputation to uphold both on and off the pitch – the team also needs to keep its house in order which is why for the last two years they have enlisted the help of Industrial Cleaning specialists, Cleanex Contract Service Limited - part of AM Services Group - to keep the Bet 365 stadium in premier condition for its fans and players alike. Based next to a large industrial incinerator and on the edge of the A50 – the direct route in and out of Stoke on Trent – the Stadium is subject to constant airborne pollution and contaminates from the environment which settle onto the landmark. This has created the need for regular industrial cleaning, especially at height, to keep it in fan-worthy condition. Earlier this year, the team at Cleanex were brought in to facilitate the difficult task of high level jet washing the exterior of the stadium including all of its cladding. The team also cleaned the two bronze statues of its former players, Stanley Matthews and Gordon Banks, the main reception and also handled both the internal and external cleaning of the vinyl dome at its training academy - which stands over 10 metres high at its highest point. A team of three from Cleanex tackled the essential exterior works, which despite being at high level, posed no major challenge for the experts who are well versed in complex, power washing techniques and experienced in working at height. However, due to the location of the areas which required cleaning there were a number of logistics to manage. The team had to consider public safety due the size and scale of the machinery being used – which ranged from 7-15 tons. Their solution was to set up clear ‘exclusion zones’ around the machines. It was also necessary to manage and temporarily stop the flow of the traffic around the stadium – whilst re-routing pedestrians for their own safety. This ensured safe completion of the job with minimum disruption or impact to the public. High level access equipment in the form of 125ft cherry pickers was selected to enable the team to reach the heights required to do the job. A petrol powered vehicle housed the jet washing units which were mounted onto trailers alongside containers holding 1,000 litres of water. The team then used the high pressure jet washers to blast the cladding clean and licensed stand pipes for water were used to jet wash the exterior of the stadium & training academy in just a week. OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2016 21 CLEANING HYGIENE TODAY The Stadium is subject to constant airborne pollution and contaminates from the environment which settle onto the landmark. This has created the need for regular industrial cleaning, especially at height.”
Cleaning Hygiene Today October-November 2016
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