Prop Pal founder, Stephen Cheshire (builder with thirty plus years in construction) had many sleepless nights due to leaving his customers’ homes propped up with overloaded cantilevers. Overloading was inevitable with the scale of jobs Stephen was taking on. Low SWL of 340kg caused deflection to the cantilevers as well as lateral pressure and damage to Acrow Prop tubes. Too much was at stake working this way and health and safety must be the priority.

Today’s structural alterations i.e. knock throughs for open plan living space, are much bigger with much greater risks. So, with a workforce that he was responsible for and a building reputation to be proud of and maintain, Stephen was on a mission to find a solution to avoid the unthinkable.

In the meantime, Stephen turned to traditional needle support with scraps of RSJ / box sections. However, there’s no certified SWL, no secure locking slots for Acrow Props which again creates an unsafe and unsecure method of support. The extra time, mess and work these traditional methods created made the job just as laborious and stressful. The sleepless nights continued.

On one of Stephen’s sleepless nights in 2015, the ‘Prop Star’ solution was born - The Prop Pal Needle System! Stephen searched the internet for a similar idea and drew a blank. It was time to submit for a Patent!