Features and Benefits

The key benefits of Pynford Beams are:

• Cost savings
• Time savings
• Settlement criteria guaranteed to be met
• No disruption for floors below
• Increased safety
• More flexible in terms of beam sizes / strengths
• Guaranteed quality system and management

A comparison of the main features of the Pynford Beam systems against the traditional prop and needle is provided in the table below:

	Feature	Pynford RC Beams	Pynford Steel Beams	Traditional Prop & Needle
	Safety Rating	***	**	*
	Avoids disruption to all floors below works	Yes	Yes	No
	Avoids disruption to floor above	Yes	Yes	With compromised headroom
	Built in fire resistance	Yes	No	No
	Flexible in terms of beam shape	Yes	No	No
	Flexible in terms of beam length	Yes	No	No
	Can deal with unstable masonry	Yes	Yes	No
	Speed of construction	medium	fast	slow
	Facilitates column replacement	Yes	Yes	No
	Minimises settlements by maintaining load path	Yes	Yes	No
	Reduced deflections	Yes	No	No
	Can reduce deflections further by pre-loading	Yes	Yes	Yes – but can cause more distress and settlement
	Can increase moment resistance by post tensioning	Yes	No	No
	Benefits of proprietary system	Yes	Yes	No
	Access requirements	Minimal	Can vary	Often significant
	Reinstatement costs	To one floor only	To one floor only	To all floors
	Highly capable and flexible design approach	Yes	Yes	N/A