Components
What is a standard?
A standard is the vertical tube in a scaffold. Standards carry the load of the structure, the platform and everything on it down to the ground, through a base plate and sole board at the foot.
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.
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<img src="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk/glossary/standard/diagram.svg" alt="standard — scaffold diagram from ScaffoldOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk/glossary/standard">What is a standard?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk">ScaffoldOptix</a>
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</figure>Standards are set out in two rows for an independent scaffold — an inner row close to the building and an outer row — and joined to each other by ledgers along the length and transoms across the width. That grid is what turns a set of loose tubes into a structure: a standard on its own is a pole, and it is the ledgers and transoms that stop it buckling.
Spacing between standards along the face is the bay length, and it is not an arbitrary choice. The heavier the intended load, the closer the standards, because the platform load has to reach the ground through them. A scaffold built for a bricklayer carrying material is set out tighter than one put up for a painter.
Scaffold tube to BS EN 39 has an outside diameter of 48.3mm, which is why a standard from one supplier couples to a ledger from another. That interchangeability is the whole basis of tube and fitting scaffolding.
Standards are joined vertically with sleeve or joint pins as the scaffold rises, and those joints are staggered between adjacent standards rather than landing at the same lift — a row of joints at one level is a weakness running straight across the scaffold.
What goes wrong on site
- Standards landing on soft or made-up ground with no sole board, so the whole structure settles unevenly once it is loaded.
- Joints in adjacent standards lined up at the same lift instead of staggered.
- Bay lengths set out by eye rather than to the loading the scaffold is actually for, which is the most common way a scaffold ends up outside the compliance sheet it was supposed to be built to.