Specialists believe the construction industry is evolving too slowly with labour-productivity growth averaging only 1 percent a year over the last two decades[1].
This is where the opportunity for brands such as Gripple, the South-Yorkshire based market-leading manufacturer of wire joining devices and suspension systems for construction, civil engineering and agriculture, can really come into their own.
1. Speed
Modern suspension systems are faster to install than traditional threaded rod and chain methods. The main reason for this is the elimination of pre-work involved in a traditional installation. These systems arrive on site in kits with pre-cut lengths of wire rope and fused end fittings, meaning installation times are reduced considerably.
Offsite manufacturing is a huge driver in construction creating leaner ways of working with modern systems removing much of the labour-intensive work more traditionally done onsite.
The benefits of modern wire joining devices are often aligned with the benefits of BIM through ease of specification. Technical teams can work directly with contactors, engineers and consultants to design bespoke solutions based on the needs of the project. At Gripple, this allows them to deliver exact product requirements direct to site.
2. Environmental
With the construction sector contributing 50% of global landfill[2], the less waste the better and using modern wire suspension systems results in a significant reduction. Modern kits are made to the exact job specification eliminating the mass of waste materials produced by threaded rod and chain systems which are cut and filed to size on site.
Alongside material savings, vehicle movements are also reduced as the pre-engineered products come in compact boxes requiring far less stacking space and easing the handling on-site too.
For every metre of Gripple wire rope specified to replace threaded rod, it is estimated that a saving of 1.2kg of embodied CO2 is made. This equates to a total embodied CO2 saving of up to 95% when switching from threaded rod to wire rope.
3. Health & Safety
Modern suspension systems have a number of onsite health and safety benefits. Firstly, they remove the need for potentially hazardous hot works and cutting onsite by arriving as ready-to-use kits.
They are also much lighter than the more traditional technique with a standard kit weighing just eight kilograms but doing the same job as 150kg of threaded rod and channel. Not only is the weight and
bulk of carry materials reduced but also the amount of time spent working at height due to the ease of installation.
Onsite storage is a huge health and safety issue effecting site regulations. Contractors can store the boxes supplied by Gripple very efficiently as reference numbers which correspond with site drawings are marked on the packaging.
4. Aesthetics
Wire rope kits are very lightweight and virtually invisible as the systems can use two millimetre rope to do the same as eight millimetre threaded rod.
There has been an increase in buildings using wire suspensions systems to suspend services in open roof spaces, making the building feel airy and creating an industrial feel. This is increasingly popular with retailers and shop fitters who use the more modern systems to complement contemporary spaces.
5. Strength & Versatility
Wire rope systems offer far more versatility on projects where building spaces are less conventional, and the flexibility of the modern solutions allows contractors to suspend services in hard to reach spaces. Some systems, such as the Gripple Catenary, can now facilitate the suspension of services where there is no fixing point by creating a secondary span.
Gripple’s modern suspension systems come with an engineered safety factor of 5:1, meaning the company recommends a maximum safe working load but products are successfully tested to safely hold five times the load. Gripple recently launched a new single channel solution for building services suspensions, UniGrip, which boasts the best load performance on the wire suspension system market today.
[1] Mckinsey Global Institute 2017 REINVENTING CONSTRUCTION: A ROUTE TO HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY
[2] https://www.initiafy.com/blog/how-does-construction-impact-the-environment