Cardiff Collapse some time ago ..

Interserve / Kwikform job - I was told through the grapevine that the ties had been removed by other trades, rather than not enough being put in to start with. Anyone confirm this ?
 
recall that story to , in contract journal years ago , think kwikform got well slated , wetrnt it ment to have 120 ties and there was only 30 in it or somtink like dat
 
scaffold collapse

Kwikform (Interserve)
1) did not install sufficient ties
2) majority of Hilti ties not set correctly
3) Scaffolders not trained to install ties
4) Monaflex fixed to the inside face of the scaffold
£240k Fine & ongoing insurance claim

Taylor Woodrow
1) Did have a sufficiently robust scaffold inspection regime
£80k Fine
 
Yeah the scaffold required over 200 ties and it had about 90 I think. Nothing to do with 3rd party misuse.

Lucky that it collapsed at night or certain Interserve personell would probably be facing manslaughter charges otherwise.
 
I know this was a few years ago, but, why do companies put monaflex/debris netting to the inside?!?!
I cant get my head round it....
 
Cardiff job

Hi

I think this job made Kwikform get out of commercial contract scaffolding and only do the petro/ chem sort of work.

Also think their insurers went bust not long after the collapse so they ending up having to foot the claims.

Always was a problem getting the hilti anchors fixed properly as you should blow out the dust and have a special tool to set the anchor, as this would have been the old HKD bullets

Chris Eng
 
Ive never had to get involved in dismantling a collapsed scaffold but how the hell would you go about sorting that?
Cherry pickers or what?
 
Just a follow on

Kwikform had already decided to pull out of South Wales prior to the collapse. They used cherry pickers and burning lances to cut the scaffold down, they then had to dismantle the remaining scaffold and re erect another complete scaffold to continue the Project
 
i bet if you were on the second lift when that went,the conversation would be something like what the emporer of japan said when nagasaki bomb went off,what was that noise.
i know of a scaff that took all the ties out of a job like that,one at a time for other trades to work,only problem was,he dint put them back afterwords.and no i wont name him.:D
 
Remember it well i was on Kwikform bristol branch at the time think it was christmas time , i remember being asked to go and help if required but luckily they never asked
 
Think i would have gone off ill if was asked to help strike that with a thermal lance
 
Cardiff Collapse

One of the contributing factors to this incident was that the ties were not installed correctly and had not been tested and the photographic evidence confirmed this.The majority of the ties were Hilti HKD type and they had not been set correctly by using the red setting tool to push the slug down the anchor far enough to spread the end sufficiently to grip the base material.
TG4 04 is very clear on this subject of testing the base materal for suitability and then testing a percentage of the ties to make sure they are installed correctly.
 
Last edited:
Christmas 2000

The scaffold collapsed at the beginning of Dec 2000, resulting in the surrounding stores and rail station having to close for 2 or 3 weeks in the run up to Xmas. I can remember waking up to the local news showing CCTV footage of the scaffold collapse.
 
Mark_ISL said:
Interserve / Kwikform job - I was told through the grapevine that the ties had been removed by other trades, rather than not enough being put in to start with. Anyone confirm this ?
Click to expand...


If i remember correctly it was put down to insufficent ties...
 
I would not want to be the chargehand who erected it even if it was not his fault as you know thats the first person to shift the blame too.
 
The financial consequence of getting this one wrong would have been (and still is) huge!!! Imagine if there had been a fatality or multiple fatalities!!
 
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