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Scaffold tower – looking for opinions please
Hi All,
our local health and safety man, has declared our scaffold unfit for purpose, and in fairness i cant believe we have got away with it for so long! I have been looking around on the internet and have found this:https://www.aluminium-scaffoldtowers.co … tower.html
looks good to me, and the price seems good to? Does anyone have an opinion or can offer any advice before we buy? Or any recommendations?
Thanks in advance
Dan -
10 Replies
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Hi
They look fine and they are 3T compliant.
Think the horizontals are thinner than on Boss scaffold but northing wrong with the weight limits.
Only downside is that I’m guessing they aren’t compatible with Boss, hence you will have to get all extras and accessories from the same company. We have a Boss tower and can get almost unlimited cheap extras and add ons from the likes of eBay.
The platform size is fine for 1-person, just looking at their website the ‘industrial’ range with wider and longer decks will give more space for a 2nd person and tools etc. Dearer but still seem a really good price and compatible with Boss.
Cheers
Macky -
They are fine as painting platforms or DIY but they are pretty flimsy feeling and don’t inspire confidence when you are at any height…couple of tiers OK…3 or 4 and…not so much.
Looked at them as they are just so cheap in comparison to industrial ‘BOSS’ or similar – made a wide berth – paying an extra grand doesn’t seem that bad when you are 30 feet in the air!
Dave
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thanks Guys, is BOSS the preferred scaffold in the UK? I will have a google again i think.
cheers
Dan
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this reminded me of a guy that setup in our area, doing everything on a shoestring and he did not invest in scaffold, and I kid you not I have a photo somewhere that I took of him putting a sign up on the side of a factory that sold second hand JCB diggers, and he has a ladder perched in a digger bucket that is extended up the side of the building with him perched on top of the ladder in the bucket 😮 😮 😮
needless to say he did end up having an accident at a later date doing something similar and he ended up getting quite a nasty back injury that left him unable to work.
the moral of the story is don’t cut corners when it comes to access equipment, as mentioned above when you are 30ft in the air it does not seem expensive anymore!
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I don’t use scaffold any more. only a cherry picker for access to areas our trestles cant reach. trestles will do all shop fronts, truck vinyl applications etc.
anything above its strictly cherry picker.
regardless, cherry picker or scaffold, you will now need your IPAF or similar licence. separate IPAF for both scaffold and cherry picker.
i know some will be saying yeh yeh IPAF another way to get money out you for H&S purposes!
i did too, and i thought ide every reason to. we had our own 50ft van/truck mounted boom cherry picker and i had been using it 15 years. amongst many other rented type cherry pickers. still, when i went for my IPAF, as much as i didnt learn anything about operating one as such, the health and safety and how to avoid a disaster information was brilliant. simple things you dont think about when working one of these machines, that could easily lead to death, your own death!scaffold, ladders, even trestles, they all have high risk of danger.
i personally came off a ladder and was only about 15ft up.
always had the opinion if a tower or ladder is going ill jump clear.
bang and a white flash and i was lying on my back looking at the ceiling of a ware house. head thumping and sore back.
once i managed to get to my feet i still had my drill in my hand. however, the drill bit was snapped and still in the sign above me.
the aluminium ladder, well i had bent one of the foot rungs with the speed i came down at. could easily have opened my head in the fall but i think landing on top of the ladder stopped so much impact to the back of my head.
NO CHANCE was i jumping clear, i didnt even know i was going. the feet shot from under the ladder, not a balance thing.i know 2 customers that have had bad scaffold accidents over the years too.
one fell down between a wall and the tower because he stood too close to the edge when drilling. he was in hospital a week.
the other was up 50ft painting the front of a factory. one of his lads went for the lunch leaving the trap door open. whilst he made his way along side stepping painting he went down the open trap door. hit the platform one down and went out the side landing in the car park. he was in hospital 6 months. and still cant stand for longer than 30 minutes at a time without a break.showcase cinemas next to where i live.
3 sign companies on site doing the work. one company was going for a break. the other asked could they use their cherry picker whilst they were away? So they agreed.
the guys came back from their break to find police and ambulances everywhere. one sign maker dead and the other in a very bad way.
the scissor lift cherry picker they borrowed went over in the wind while putting sheeting into place on the big showcase sign.yes i know, long winded reply for a quick scaffold question. but when you know people this type of thing has happened to personally, including myself. you start to think on it a bit more, because your dead a long time! 😀
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Hi Rob,
to be honest we have been using cherry pickers and scissor lifts for most jobs, but the transport firm has put his prices up and the cost of a half an hour journey with the lift is now 90 euros each way, (the lifts are only 75 euros for the day) and we are losing jobs because of the costs added on of the lift and transport, hence wanting to think about going back to scaffold. We can transport it ourselves and charge the client for the time installing and removing, and a small charge for the hire for the day.cheers
Dan
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quote Dan Osterbery:Hi Rob,
to be honest we have been using cherry pickers and scissor lifts for most jobs, but the transport firm has put his prices up and the cost of a half an hour journey with the lift is now 90 euros each way, (the lifts are only 75 euros for the day) and we are losing jobs because of the costs added on of the lift and transport, hence wanting to think about going back to scaffold. We can transport it ourselves and charge the client for the time installing and removing, and a small charge for the hire for the day.cheers
Dan
i couldn’t agree more dan, you do what you have to do to win work mate.
i am just not a fan of scaffold or ladders.
As i said, trestles do us for 95% of shop front signage and ALL vehciles, based on height.
something else with scaffold, generally, when a sign is going higher and higher, it is getting bigger and bigger…
this being the case passing 10×5 sheets of aluminium and the like can prove difficult going up 20-30ft. its easy to scratch and damage the panel and depending. not to mention the chance of dropping it. "its supposed to be hoisted up into position" rather than a man hanging out the side of the tower passing a sheet to the next guy hanging out tower and so on.
i know all h&s nonsense but still. using the cherry picker we have our own hook on type bracket to hold the sign from underneath as we hoist it up. then glass grips holding it firm on the face too. just makes life easier for us on the whole. but i do appreciate what your saying. -
Rob could you post a wee picture of your shop front Scaffolding, trelleses.
anything higher than a few foot and im like bambi on ice! i so help will be employed.
i dont understand why a 3 foot ladder etc scares me half to death but ive been up the eiffel tower and empire state without a care !
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Mine has just arrived! One man, half an hour to erect it! I cant believe how stable it is! absolutely chuffed and going to give her a test run on a job tomorrow! Cant get over how little it weighs!!!! So different to our Spanish scaffolding!
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Rob
That was a long reply but thanks for it
We all need these reminders
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