Building a Scaffold Bridge Across a Dam

The Scaffold Guy & Son in Cape Town, South Africa were approached to build scaffolding for the Power Ratanga bridge over a dam and provide access for crews constructing new office blocks and flats. It would also serve as a bridge for people to walk over the dam once the buildings were completed.

The project was unique because they had to design and execute a scaffold build that could be used to provide support for the bridge while remaining stable despite standing in water and soft ground. These conditions added further challenges when it came to transporting materials to the workface.

As water levels rose, water had to be pumped out for the crew to continue their work. To overcome the hurdle of bringing their materials to the job site, they utilized a digger loader.

As the company has been offering scaffold management services since 1999, they had plenty of experience to apply to solving the challenge. Despite the complexities, they produced an effective access solution and executed it successfully.

Michael Reddek, from The Scaffold Guy & Son, said that Avontus Designer eased the difficult process and helped to foresee and resolve any problems that could arise.

He said, “The programme helped with making the design easy, getting an easy material list and when the drawing needed to be altered, it was easy to do with Avontus.”