Scaffolding

Octain Recruitment • 10th November 2013,

Outsourcing the recruitment process to a construction recruitment consultancy is the preferred method of many companies (both large and small) for temporary and permanent needs. Construction Recruitment agencies use various approaches to satisfy their personnel needs. Frequent methods used are:

  • Social Media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin are now utilised to head hunt specific candidates and use very targeted adverts to resource candidates.
  • Internet services such as recruitment sites and job search-engines are employed to collect many candidates by promoting the position to a broad or narrow geographic area.

History

Ancient
Sockets in the walls around apaleolithic cave paintings in Lascaux, southwestern France may suggest  that a type of scaffold was employed to help paint the ceiling. The painting is estimated to orginate over seventeen thousand years ago.
The Berlin Foundry Cup from the 5th century BC from ancient Greece depicts wooden scaffolding. Egyptians, Nubians and Chinese are also recorded as utilising scaffold like constructions to create tall buildings and structures. Early scaffolding was created from wood wooden and secured with rope.
 
 

Modern era

Throughout| the course of the Victorian period, scaffolding was erected by companies with varying standards and dimensions. Scaffolding was standardised by British Patent Rapid established in 1906 by Daniel Palmer-Jones and his brother. – The company became Scaffolding Great Britain in 1919 and is now owned by Harsco.

 

Daniel Palmer-Jones revolutionised the scaffold industry with the “Scaffixer”, a patented  coupling device significantly stronger than rope. He then proceeded this up with the enhanced “Universal Coupler”  which is still the scaffold industry standard today.

 

They then went on to introduce tubular steel water pipes as an alternative to wooden poles with standardised dimensions, enabling for the industrial interchange ability of components thus enhancing the structural stability of the scaffold. The use of diagonal bracings also enhances stability, particularly on tall  structures. The initial frame system was introduced to marketplace by the company in 1944 was  employed  thoroughly}for the post-war reconstruction.

 

Scaffolding Today

The European Standard (BS EN 12811-1), specifies Performance specification and strategies of structural and standard design for access and working scaffold are specified by the European Standard (BS EN 12811-1). The specifications provided are for scaffold structures that count on the adjacent buildings for steadiness. These specifications also normally apply to other varieties of functioning scaffolds.

 

Materials
The fundamental parts of scaffolding are boards, tubes, and couplers. The simple light-weight tube scaffolding become the standard in the 1950s was the same for many years. With a single standard twenty four pound unit a scaffold of a variety of dimensions and heights could be assembled effortlessly by a pair of labourers with out the nuts or bolts  formerly necessary.

Scaffold tubes are normally produced  of aluminium or steel, there is also composite scaffolding, which is manufactured from glass fibre tubes  wound with nylon or polyester matrix filament. Composite tubes are expensive; for this reason they are commonly used when their is a health and safety issue with overhead cables. The tubes occur in a range of lengths and a diameter of 48.3mm. The main distinction between the 2 types of tubes is the decrease mass of aluminium tubes and also their increased flexibility and decreased resistance to force.

 

Boards  give a work surface for  the scaffolder to operate from. They are seasoned timber and come in three common thickenesses; 38 mm, 50mm and 63mm are a regular width of 225mm and are a max length of 3.9 meters in length. Metal plates referred to as hoop irons proved protection to the ends of these boards.

 

Wood scaffold boards in the United kingdom ought to comply with the specifications of BS 2482. As well as wood, metal decking and laminate boards is utilised. Additionally to boards for the operating platform there are sole boards which can be positioned under the scaffold if the  floor area is soft or suspect. One more solution known as to a scaffpad, is produced from rubber with a base| plate moulded within; these are desirable for use on uneven ground as they are flexible enough to adapt to uneven ground.

 

Scaffold tubes are kept together by a type of fitting called couplers, of which there are 3 basic types. Other frequent equipment used by scaffolders are; base plates, ladders, ropes, anchor ties, reveal ties, gin wheels and sheeting.

 

Basic scaffolding

The essential components of scaffold are standards, ledgers and transoms. The standards also referred to as uprights, are vertical tubes that transfer the whole mass of the structure to the floor where they reside on a base plate that spreads the load into the ground. The horizontal tubes are referred to as ledgers, they connect between the standards. Resting between the ledgers at right angles are the transforms.