Commercial Scaffolding – St Patricks Cathedral, Parramatta

This week Stronghold Hire were asked to provide a scaffold at St. Patricks Cathedral in Parramatta. They had an issue with the ceiling panels becoming loose over the area that the choir would normally sit. This is obviously a major health and safety hazard and needed to be addressed urgently.

Commercial Scaffolding With 48 Hour Turn Around Time

The scaffold needed to be designed to get access to all wall and ceiling panels with a turn around from quote stage to install of less than 48 hours. This area is obviously barricaded off inside the church to protect the public until the panels are replaced.

Apart from the challenge of the quick turnaround time we also had to work with the Priest and facility manager to ensure minimum disruption to normal service and that no noise at all was created at mass times.

Great Care and an Irreplaceable Pipe Organ

Great care had to be taken walking the material into the church and stacking inside so that no surfaces were scratched or chipped, any damage to the seats, walls or floors would obviously not have been acceptable. We used protective cloth and plywood to protect the choir stage prior to starting the erection stage. We also used load bearing timbers and u head jacks to spread the load across the choir stage to ensure structural stability.

There was an organ on this stage that could not be removed and was classed as irreplaceable so we ensured that this was completely protected plus the scaffold decks strengthened in this area.

Scaffolding with Rope & Wheel System

We finished the scaffold by installing a rope and wheel system for the client to easily and safely move small tools and materials up and down from the floor to the decks.