Ties
What is a tie pattern?
The tie pattern is the arrangement of ties across a scaffold — how many, where, and of what type. It is set by the design or the compliance sheet, not chosen on site.
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/tie-pattern/diagram.svg" alt="tie pattern — scaffold diagram from ScaffoldOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk/glossary/tie-pattern">What is a tie pattern?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://scaffoldoptix.co.uk">ScaffoldOptix</a>
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</figure>A tie pattern is a design output. It follows from the height of the scaffold, what it is clad with, what it is carrying and what the building offers as tie points, and it is one of the things a compliance sheet records.
Cladding is the variable that catches people out. Sheeting or netting a scaffold substantially increases the wind load it has to transfer into the building, so a scaffold tied for an open structure is under-tied the moment it is sheeted.
Because ties are removed and reinstated by other trades throughout a job, the pattern is also the part of a scaffold most likely to have quietly degraded since handover.
What goes wrong on site
- Sheeting added to a scaffold tied as an open structure.
- Ties removed by other trades with no record and no replacement.
- A pattern adjusted on site because a tie point was awkward, without going back to the design.