Historically, mezzanine floors were constructed from scaffolding tubes with wooden planks simply bolted on top - giving businesses and people an inexpensive method of expanding floor space in offices, industrial facilities and homes. But as an unregulated product, it brought with it major safety and quality issues.
The other mezzanine flooring alternative (concrete blocks were spanned with lengths of timber with a plywood decking as a cover) did little to overcome these challenges. But dangerous as they were, these two methods had been in use for over 100 years.
40 years ago, however, everything changed, and the standard mezzanine product became a combination of structural steel and timber.
The emergence of the mezzanine industry as we know it today came with the use of the roof purlin.By changing the profile of galvanised roof Z-purlins and creating an inward lip C-section beam that could be used with hot-rolled steelwork, we created a cleat that could connect the new purlins directly into an I-section beam. This produced a neat, economical system on top of which various modern decking systems could be placed to create a mezzanine floor.
The benefits of this new system included cost, long spans, speed on installation and - importantly - greater quality and safety.
Together, Les Chapman, former Joint MD of Keith Hancock Structures and Frank Neil, an independent Consulting Engineer, devised a cold-rolled cleat system that we all use today for different types of uses and environments. The advantage of this cleat with new galvanised sections is that it removes the need for carpentry, is quick to install, safer to use and accommodates longer spans of up to 7.5 metres, using lightweight economical galvanised joists for large-scale mezzanine installations.
Scott Chambers, Managing Director
