How to have a positive experience with a setback – Porch brackets at 1900 Rittenhouse, Philadelphia
It’s time to pay tribute to the outsiders in our company. Yes, it’s the swing department. In fact, I hate to admit this but they came up with that very clever headline. I wish I could take credit for it but I can’t.
Is our swing department the “bad boys” of the company? You tell me? In their spare time all they do is race cars (fast cars) build hot rods, snowmobile through the frozen tundra (very fast) talk about driving fast, and taking chances. Have you detected a theme here? All except for the one VW building hippy who just likes to putter around at 50 brake horsepower thinking he’s going really fast… But then again, he’s got the pop-up camper lid and big screen TV in case he wants to take a nap. He’s the exception. (Also the one who came up with the headline – not to name names) He actually said, “Some might think that in this day and age of airbags and crumple zones driving a vintage VW bus is kind of living on the edge.” He’s a rebel..
I just thought about it for a second – and maybe I’m bestowing too much onto their “bad boy” image. It seems to me that the regular scaffold guys are just as loony. I mean, you would have to be to climb around on the outside of buildings held on only by a harness and your brute strength. At lest the boys in the swing department have a (sort of) cage to protect them AND motors to elevate them up and down whereas the scaffolding men have to climb up and down under their own power. Hmmmm.
I guess this debate could rage on for pages. Can we at least agree on one thing? No matter what reputation our guys have off the job – they do some pretty incredible work and they won’t take chances with safety.
Which brings us to the actual job.
I posted this because this isn’t something you see everyday. While doing facade restoration and window replacement at the high rise at 1900 Rittenhouse Square – our guys at Superior Scaffold used 3 foot and 6 foot porch brackets to allow contractors access to the setback facade of the building without having to reach out dangerously or make additional drops in work cages.
What are porch brackets, you ask? They are those unique pieces that so handily clip right into the Altrex staging that fill the gaps. In the photo above you can see one single 3 foot section on the left and two (3’ sections side-by-side) to make the 6’ section. They not only save time and money but also make it much safer for crews while working on buildings with setbacks and bump outs.
This 50’ section of staging spans the entire façade and fits perfectly on either side of the window balconies. The porch brackets allow workers direct access to the façade in one sweep. This superior scaffold is also rigged with the Bisomac 210 hoist for super strength and reliability. We can give a shout out to our supplier BeeAccees who provides us with all of these cool items. This just goes to show how versatile accessories like porch brackets can be when planning out a restoration project.
In this photo you can see the guys working on the windows actually standing on the porch brackets. Without them it would be an infinitely harder job and certainly more time consuming.
So, as the debate rages on – swing department = “bad boys” or not – we can be assured that the crews of this job at 1900 Rittenhouse had a positive experience with a few setbacks!
A bit of history on 1900 Rittenhouse: 1900 Rittenhouse Square Apartments is a historic high-rise building on Rittenhouse Square in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was built 1923–1926. The 58-meter-tall, 18-story building has been converted to condominiums.
If you need a positive experience with a few setbacks call Superior Scaffold today – (215) 743-2200.