Hartford shoring and support designed, not improvised
Propping, needling, raking shores and facade retention for buildings being altered or partly removed. Designed by an engineer, installed to that design, and inspected while it is in place.
Propping that has been put where it looked sensible is not shoring, it is decoration that gets in the way. Real temporary works start with a load: what is being held, how much it weighs, where it wants to go and what the ground or the floor beneath can take.
From that comes prop spacing, sole plates, needling positions and whether the support has to run through more than one storey. The design is signed, and it is checked while it is standing rather than only when it goes in, because props get knocked, adjusted and quietly moved by other trades.
The commonest failure in temporary works is not the prop, it is the thing underneath it. A prop taking several tonnes and standing on a suspended floor is transferring that load into a slab that was designed for furniture, and unless the load is spread or carried down to something solid it simply moves the problem one storey lower.
The same applies outside, where soft ground under a sole plate will let a raking shore settle and go slack overnight. So the design has to follow the load all the way to something that can genuinely take it, which sometimes means propping through several floors to the ground slab.
Anything holding a structural load, yes. The design is what makes it shoring rather than props in roughly the right place, and it is signed before anything is transferred onto it.
As long as the design allows and it is being inspected. Props get knocked and adjusted by other trades, so scheduled checks matter more the longer it stands.
Within limits set by the design. What cannot happen is a prop being moved to suit access without the engineer agreeing, and that is the single most common cause of trouble.
Where a frontage is being kept, it is designed as its own scheme with its own inspection regime, and it usually needs a road or footway agreement as well.
If the load cannot be spread safely on the floor below, yes. Following the load down to something that can take it is what the design is for.
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