Ties
What is a anchor tie?
An anchor tie fixes into the fabric of the building with a drilled anchor, usually a ring or eye bolt, to which the scaffold is tied.
Use this diagram+
Free to use on your own site, in training material or in a course handout, as long as the credit link stays on it. Paste this where you want the diagram to appear.
<figure>
<img src="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk/glossary/anchor-tie/diagram.svg" alt="anchor tie — scaffold diagram from ScaffoldOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
<figcaption>
<a href="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk/glossary/anchor-tie">What is a anchor tie?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk">ScaffoldOptix</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>Where there is no opening and nothing to box around, an anchor tie makes a tie point where none existed — which is why it is the fallback on blank elevations and modern cladding.
It puts a hole in somebody's building, which is a permission question as much as a technical one, and it depends entirely on what the substrate can take.
Anchor ties are proof tested to confirm the fixing achieves the load the design assumes. Testing a sample rather than every anchor is normal practice, and the regime is set by the design rather than decided on site.
What goes wrong on site
- Fixed into a substrate — render, brick slips, lightweight block — that cannot take the load.
- Installed without the testing regime the design assumed.
- Left in place after the scaffold is struck, with no agreement about making good.