Interesting details
Be Flexible
Our initial plan was to work only weekends over the wall when the building was vacant of personnel on the bottom floors of the building since dropping anything would mean going through the glass that is sloped at the bottom of the building. We factored weather into our schedule, however, it was not only raining many days but the wind stayed at a much higher rate than what we deemed to be safe. We did not go over the wall when the wind exceeded 20 mph. We set up our own anemometer on the roof so we would know instantly the intensity and direction of the wind.
After the second week we altered our plans to work only nights. Typically wind is much lower at night and we were able to make up lost time safely. We staged lighting on our working area and were able to complete the project on time without any injuries and minimal damage
The Damage
Careful coordination with the glass supplier was critical. If we dropped an item and just cracked the glass without full penetration then we knew repair could wait till the end of the project when a complete review of all damage could be assessed. If we broke through a glass panel entirely then it was imperative to have the glass supplier ready to immediately replace the panel with either glass or plywood within hours.
Nelson from our office and the building representative would find spots adjacent to the building and inspect the glass using binoculars. We budgeted 4 panes of glass since the glass supplier told us no one has ever changed signs on the building without breaking glass.
Since each pane costs $8,500., prudent allowances were necessary. The first day we cracked a pane but do not know what we dropped to cause the breakage. Not a good start for a three month project. As our installers got into a rhythm of work we did not break any more panels until near the end of the project. We ended up only cracking only 2 panels. After the entire project was complete, then the glass supplier replaced the panels.
Getting Them Down
The letters were not only 550 feet up in the air, they were enormous. The “M” in Modis was 18 feet high and 36 feet wide and full of glass filled with neon. Using equipment like many window washers use, a staging platform was used for the crew to stand on to disassemble the sign and bring it up to the roof in sections. The sections on the roof were cut into smaller sections so that they could be lowered down to the equipment floor inside the building through a hatch and then carried down to the loading dock via the freight elevator. Our planning team decided it was necessary for this tedious and time consuming process to be implemented in order to ensure the safest working practices.
Who would have thought of this
One of our crew expressed a safety concern working so close to one of the Radio Frequency, RF, towers on the roof of the building. Nelson as project manager felt it was important to address this issue so he arranged for the City to have one of their technical engineers monitor the emitting RF towers. It was found that there were no safety concerns at all using his monitoring equipment. We were all relieved with this news.
Planning and Success
This type of complex, inherently dangerous project does not successfully conclude without injury, on time, and on budget without a massive amount of preplanning. Thinking through the what-ifs and plan B strategies are imperative. It takes individuals who understand construction and the intricacies of the sign industry at an extordinary level to make this happen. At the risk of making his head too big to make it through the door I want to acknowledge Nelson Robinette at Brown Enterprises for being that instrumental person who made it all happen.
