Tips for good scaffold maintenance

Tips for good scaffold maintenance

Your safety on the scaffold is not only about PPE and a high-quality scaffolding system but also about the proper maintenance of your scaffolding material. So, before you even begin to erect your scaffolding on site, you should make sure that all components are safe to use.

Read here how to keep your scaffolding material in good condition.

Inspect your scaffolding material regularly and replace damaged parts at an early stage

On the construction site, people usually don't handle the material with kid gloves. So it's no surprise that your scaffolding material has to take a beating during its service life. So over time, of course, there are damaged scaffolding parts that need to be replaced.

That’s why regular inspections of your scaffolding material are crucial. The sooner you replace or repair damaged scaffolding parts the better. Damaged scaffolding material not only puts you and your crew at risk for injury, but it can also damage other scaffolding components that are still in good condition.

If you have found a damaged scaffolding part in your warehouse that cannot be repaired, you should no longer use it for its original purpose. However, you do not necessarily have to throw it away.

Here are tips on what you can do depending on the condition of the damaged scaffolding part:

1. The damage doesn’t affect the whole scaffolding part

In this case, you can repurpose the scaffolding part. If you have deformed metal scaffold deck you can simply cut off all of the damaged part and remake it into a sole plate for stabilising the scaffold. Only use undamaged parts of the scaffold deck for this purpose.

2. The damage only affects the ends of a scaffold part

If the damage only affects the ends of a scaffold part, you can consider cutting them off and repurposing the part. For example, you can cut off the damaged ends of a scaffold tube and to reuse it as a shorter scaffold tube.

3. The damage affects the entire scaffold part

If you cannot repurpose the damaged scaffold component, you can have it scrapped.

Make sure your scaffolding material is clean before you store it

The cleaning of your parts before the next use is one of the crucial parts of scaffold maintenance. This is not only for visual reasons, but also to ensure that you don't miss any damage or moisture that might be hidden under dirt, concrete, paint residues or similar.

Extend the service life of your scaffolding material with optimal storage conditions

All scaffold parts are intact and clean - so it's time for storage. And even if this seems logical: Correct storage is the be-all and end-all of scaffold maintenance. In order not to accelerate wear of the material and corrosion, the storage conditions should prevent contact of the scaffolding material with high heat as well as moisture. Wooden parts such as scaffold decks or loose parts such as nuts and bolts should be covered if possible. This is because they are particularly susceptible to damage from too much moisture.

Stacking should also be done carefully. But when things have to move fast, caution sometimes comes up short. Nevertheless, this step should be carried out carefully, otherwise it is easy to bend or damage scaffolding parts. And that can show up in your finances later on. So make sure that your team is familiar with the correct storage and stacking of the scaffolding material.

If you want to get something out of your scaffolding material for a long time, proper scaffold maintenance and investing in high quality scaffold material is your key to success. For more information about what kind of scaffold material lasts you the longest, read our blog article on the topic.