Classifications

• • E—FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS
  • E04—BUILDING
  • E04G—SCAFFOLDING; FORMS; SHUTTERING; BUILDING IMPLEMENTS OR AIDS, OR THEIR USE; HANDLING BUILDING MATERIALS ON THE SITE; REPAIRING, BREAKING-UP OR OTHER WORK ON EXISTING BUILDINGS
  • E04G5/00—Component parts or accessories for scaffolds
  • E04G5/14—Railings
• • E—FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS
  • E04—BUILDING
  • E04G—SCAFFOLDING; FORMS; SHUTTERING; BUILDING IMPLEMENTS OR AIDS, OR THEIR USE; HANDLING BUILDING MATERIALS ON THE SITE; REPAIRING, BREAKING-UP OR OTHER WORK ON EXISTING BUILDINGS
  • E04G5/00—Component parts or accessories for scaffolds
  • E04G5/14—Railings
  • E04G2005/148—Railings latticed or netted

Definitions

• the invention relates to safety equipment for use with scaffolding that is erected to create working platforms (known as "lifts") against the side of buildings under construction or repair.
• Health and safety regulations specify that each such lift alongside such a building is provided with bottom boards to create a working platform for the builders working at that level, and a top rail, intermediate rail and bottom kick board on the side of the working platform remote from the building.
• Those mesh guards are commonly referred to as brick guards, although clearly their purpose is to prevent all dangerous debris, not simply bricks, falling from the working platform.
• Conventional brick guards consist of a metal wire mesh to which is welded a pair of metal hooks for hooking over the top rail of the lift.
• Such brick guards have a very short working life and can themselves create a significant working hazard for those working on the scaffolding.
• the welds joining the hanging hooks to the metal mesh frequently fracture when (as often happens) they are struck by a falling piece of masonry.
• the guard then leans inwardly at an angle from the remaining hanging hook and obstructs the working platform. Moreover it no longer adequately protects those working below. It is not uncommon for both hooks to become detached, in which case the wire mesh guard can fall, to lie completely across the working platform, creating a trip hazard.
• GB-A-2534034, GB-A-2379241, GB-A-2385372 and AU-A-2006100471 are representative of prior proposals for different designs of brick guards.
• Those prior proposals have in common the fact that they each comprise a rectangular mesh screen with integral hooks along the top edge for hooking over a scaffolding lift top rail, and that the preferred, or in most cases only, material contemplated for the mesh screen and integral hooks is metal, welded into a wire mesh to form the screen or bent into a hook formation to form the hooks.
• Problems are encountered when the brick guards are detached from the scaffolding and stacked together for storage or transportation between building sites.
• EP-A-1072736 discloses an alternative design of brick guard in which the mesh may be polypropylene and carries along its bottom edge a toe guard or bottom kick board.
• the mesh and bottom kick board may be made in one piece or may be made separately, for example of different materials (for example polypropylene and metal) and bolted together.
• the hooks from which the mesh is suspended may be made separately and bolted onto the mesh as a permanent union.
• the weight of the bottom kick board which is permanently attached to the mesh screen, more than counteracts the light weight of the polypropylene mesh screen, so that each individual brick guard can be quite heavy to handle. Moreover the weight is unevenly distributed and is concentrated along the bottom edge of the brick guard. The detached brick guards, complete with their attached hooks, tend to become distorted and bent, and have a potentially very short working life.
• the invention provides a brick guard being a piece of safety equipment for use with scaffolding, having the characteristics of claim 1 herein.
• the mesh screen is first undipped from the hook members after which it can be stored completely flat. Then the hook members can be lifted off the top rail and collected, for example in a bag or sack.
• the essentially planar elements of the brick guards, namely the mesh screens, are collected and stored separately from the essentially three- dimensional elements, namely the hook members; and the separation of those elements during storage and transportation has a profound benefit for the user.
• the mesh screens take up far less space during storage and transportation, and their working life is improved immeasurably. When reused they are far more likely to maintain the flat planar shape which they had when new, which increases the safety of the product in a working environment as well as improving the appearance of the scaffolding lift, giving a more competent and professional appearance when the product is used.
• the material from which the screen is made being semi-rigid plastics material, incorporates sufficient resilience that if the brick guard is hung from a scaffolding top rail and then subjected to the impact of falling bricks, it will deflect resiliently, throwing the falling bricks or other masonry back onto the bottom boards of the scaffolding lift, thus avoiding fracture.
• brick guards Another time when conventional brick guards become damaged is when dismantling the scaffolding. Although not recommended practice, it is commonplace for builders to unhook the brick guards and throw them or drop them to the ground below. Conventional metal brick guards can bend and distort on impact with the ground, but the brick guards of the invention tend to retain the flat profile of the mesh screen even after falling from considerable heights, partly due to the semi-rigid nature of the plastics material but mainly because the mesh screens are wholly planar after being undipped from the hook members.
• a particular suitable plastics material is polypropylene, which has a high impact resistance.
• the brick guard of the invention is suitably formed by injection moulding, with the screen being integrally moulded in a single injection moulding process.
• the hook members similarly, may each be integrally moulded in a single injection moulding process.
• the intersecting rails and bars of the mesh screen can be formed with a profile that presents low wind resistance.
• a higher strength is provided by moulding the rails and bars of the mesh screen in a single plane, with the four internal angles at each intersection being radiussed.
• a small portion of the mesh screen may be filled in to create a solid plate for advertising purposes, without increasing the wind resistance unduly.
• the top edge runner forms a continuous moulded top edge to the mesh screen and may be the top rail of the mesh with the same size and rigidity as the remainder of the mesh or an increased size and rigidity.
• the brick guard can be designed to become highly visible from above and below. That is an advantageous additional safety feature, because a crane operator working at a height well above that of the scaffolding lift, or a foreman on the ground below giving directions to such a crane driver, can see the brick guards very clearly indeed. If there is an access point along the length of the scaffolding lift where there is no brick guard because materials are intended to be delivered and off-loaded onto the scaffolding lift at that access point, then that becomes a very highly visible access point. The visibility can be further enhanced by moulding the brick guard from a plastics material that is self- coloured in a highly visible, possibly fluorescent, colour.
• the mesh screen could be cut and formed from a sheet of plastics material, provided the sheet thickness was sufficient to create a semi-rigid mesh screen; or the mesh screen could be created by extruding the horizontal and vertical elements of the mesh screen at an extrusion temperature such that the horizontal and vertical elements of the mesh screen coalesce and become integrally bonded with each other where they cross.
• the brick guards of the invention can be made of any convenient length or of a range of different lengths so that they can be placed end to end completely to fill a working lift of a run of scaffolding.
• the height is preferably constant, being the standard height between the bottom board and the top rail of the scaffolding lift.
• FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a brick guard according to the invention
• Figure 2 is a perspective view of one of the hook members of Figure 1 ;
• Figure 3 is a front view of the hook member of Figure 2 and
• Figure 4 is an end view of the hook member of Figure 2.
• Figure 5 is a perspective view, partly in section, of an end upright element of the brick guard of Figure 1 , but showing optional additional moulded clip portions for clipping adjacent brick guards together end to end, and an optional additional clip portion for clipping the brick guard to an upright scaffolding pole.
• a brick guard 1 comprises a semi-rigid mesh screen 2 with three separately moulded hook portions 3.
• the mesh screen 2 is injection moulded from polypropylene.
• Each hook portion 3 ( Figures 2 to 4) comprises three inverted U-shaped moulded strap portions 4, linked together with bridging elements 5 which are also integrally injection moulded.
• the mesh screen 2 of Figure 1 comprises vertical and horizontal bars and rails, but could as easily be formed from intersecting diagonal rails.
• the intersection rails are radiussed for strength, as can be seen in Figure 1A.
• the mesh screen 2 does, however, have a horizontal continuous runner portion 5 along its top edge, formed integrally with the mesh below. It is onto that top runner portion 5 that the hook members 3 clip.
• Each hook member 3 comprises four integrally moulded retaining members 10, 11 , 12 and 13. They are formed in a row, the two on the outside (10 and 13) encircling in use the upper half of the top runner portion 5 of the mesh screen 2 and the two on the inside (11 and 12) encircling in use the lower half of the top runner portion 5.
• Figure 1 also shows how the mesh screen 2 can have a solid portion 2A integrally moulded to form a flat face for an ownership or advertising logo.
• Figure 5 illustrates two optional additions to the brick guard of the invention.
• Figure 5 shows only the right hand end vertical element 6 of the mesh screen of Figures 1 and 2, the other vertical elements and the horizontal elements being omitted in the interest of simplicity.
• Two integrally moulded hook portions 7 are shown, each intended to penetrate into and hook around a corresponding vertical element of the near side of an adjacent brick guard so as to link adjacent brick guards together.
• an optional integrally moulded clip portion 8 which is created to encircle slightly more than half the circumference of a vertical scaffolding pole, so as to hold the brick guard firmly against the scaffolding pole in an upright condition in use.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Architecture (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Civil Engineering (AREA)
• Structural Engineering (AREA)
• Emergency Lowering Means (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (1)

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ID=38616987

Family Applications (1)

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Families Citing this family (5)

Family Cites Families (20)

• 2007
  • 2007-08-30 GB GB0716857A patent/GB2445815B/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
• 2008
  • 2008-06-16 US US12/675,102 patent/US20100294591A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2008-06-16 WO PCT/GB2008/002048 patent/WO2009027620A1/en active Application Filing
  • 2008-06-16 EP EP08762375A patent/EP2193245A1/de not_active Withdrawn

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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