Receiving inspection and discarding

On delivery to site, the delivery note is signed with date and initials, and any discrepancies in quantity or type are recorded. The goods-in check happens BEFORE the components are lifted up — faults caught here are far cheaper than faults caught during erection or use.

Catch the error on the ground — it costs ten times more to discover it up on the scaffold.

Inspect tubes and standards for kinks, dents and deformation. The ends must be open and round — squashed ends are a sign of damage. Ø 48.3 mm steel tubes with actual rust pitting are scrapped; surface rust without depth can be accepted after an assessment.

A component must be scrapped if it has a visible crack or fracture — even a microcrack in a load-bearing tube corner can spread catastrophically. The same applies to deformation: kinks, bending or torsion cause the component to lose its nominal load-bearing capacity, whatever the cause.

If in doubt, reject it. The extra component costs nothing compared with an accident.

Couplers (EN 74), locking wedges and rosettes are checked for wear, deformation and cracking. A worn or cracked coupler, a locking pin that does not hold, or a defective locking fitting is a direct fall risk and is rejected.

Deck and plank units are inspected for cracks, twisting, loose aluminium ribs and damaged locking studs. The one-third rule for timber planks: if more than one board in three is cracked, the deck is rejected, and the remaining planks must not have gaps over 5 mm.

The threads and base plates of the base jacks are checked: rusted or deformed threads give unstable support, and a bent or skewed base plate will not have full contact with the ground. Damaged jacks are scrapped.

Components without CE marking or supplier documentation cannot be verified and have no place in the structure. Never mix unknown 'fits-anyway' parts into a system scaffold — only documented components for the system.

An undocumented component cannot be calculated — so it cannot be used either.

Keep rejected components completely separate with clear marking — never in the same pile as the usable ones. A rejected tube that slips back into circulation defeats the whole inspection.

Record the rejections in the QA log: date, component type, quantity and reason. The documentation shows that the inspection has actually been carried out, and makes it possible to follow a system's condition over time.