Why pay £500–£1,000 for a consultancy design when you can get the same professional BRE470 certified output for £299.99? Our piling mat design calculator delivers instant results with full certification.
The Problem with Traditional Consultancy Designs
Every piling project requires a working platform design to BRE470. Traditionally, this means engaging a temporary works consultant to produce the calculation and certificate. The typical process involves:
Cost: £500–£1,000 per design, depending on the consultant and project complexity. For a piling contractor working on multiple sites simultaneously, this adds up to thousands of pounds per month in design fees alone.
Time: 3-7 working days turnaround is typical. Some consultants offer faster turnaround for a premium, but even "express" services take 1-2 days. This delay can hold up site mobilisation and programme.
Communication overhead: The contractor must brief the consultant on the site conditions, rig type, and ground investigation data. Queries and clarifications add further delay. If parameters change (different rig, updated ground investigation), the design must be re-issued.
Inconsistency: Different consultants use different presentation formats, levels of detail, and interpretation of the BRE470 methodology. This makes it harder for TWCs to review and compare designs across projects.
For a standard BRE470 Appendix A calculation — which follows a well-defined, deterministic methodology — this traditional approach is unnecessarily expensive and slow.
How Our Calculator Changes the Game
Our BRE470 Piling Mat Design Calculator automates the entire Appendix A calculation and certification process. The result is a professional design certificate that is identical in quality and rigour to a traditional consultancy output, delivered in under 2 minutes for £299.99.
Instant results: Enter your parameters, review the calculation, and receive your certificate immediately. No waiting days for a consultant to respond.
Consistent quality: Every design follows the same rigorous methodology, with every calculation step clearly presented. The TWC sees exactly the same format and level of detail every time.
23 pre-loaded piling rigs: Select from Liebherr (LB 16 to LB 44, LRB 155, LRB 255), Bauer (BG 15 H to BG 46), and Soilmec (SR-30 to SR-100) with EN 996 track dimensions auto-filled. No need to look up rig specifications.
Professional certification: Every design certificate includes a unique reference number and is signed by David Miller, Temporary Works Designer at Temporary Works Consulting Ltd.
Both subgrade types: Full support for cohesive (clay/silt) and granular (sand/gravel) subgrades, with optional geosynthetic reinforcement.
Cost Comparison: Calculator vs Consultancy
The savings are substantial, especially for contractors running multiple projects:
A single design costs £299.99 with our calculator versus £500–£1,000 with a traditional consultant — an immediate saving of 50-70% on every design.
For a piling contractor running 5 projects per month, the annual saving is significant. At 60 designs per year, the calculator costs £17,999 versus £30,000–£60,000 for traditional consultancy. That represents savings of £12,000–£42,000 per year.
Beyond the direct cost saving, there are indirect benefits: zero waiting time means no programme delays, consistent format means faster TWC review and approval, and the ability to run multiple design scenarios quickly means better-optimised platforms.
The calculator is particularly valuable for tender-stage designs where the contractor needs a quick, reliable estimate of platform requirements to price the works. At £299.99, it is economical to run a design at tender stage and refine it when the project is awarded.
What You Get in Every Certificate
Every design certificate from our calculator includes:
Section 1 — Project Details: Project name, site location, client name, certificate reference number, and date of issue.
Section 2 — Design Parameters: Full tabulation of all input parameters including subgrade type and properties, platform material properties, plant loading (rig model, track dimensions, track pressures), and partial factors.
Section 3 — Design Results: Calculated required platform thickness (rounded to nearest 25 mm), cross-section diagram showing all layers and dimensions, and clear PASS/FAIL assessment against BRE470 criteria.
Section 4 — Calculation Audit Trail: Every step of the BRE470 Appendix A calculation presented in full, including factored loads, design angles, spread areas, bearing pressures, and bearing capacity checks. This allows the TWC to follow and verify every step of the design logic.
Section 5 — Design Check Certificate: Professional certificate with unique reference number, signed by David Miller, Temporary Works Designer, Temporary Works Consulting Ltd. Includes BRE470 compliance statement and professional disclaimer.
The entire certificate is formatted for A4 printing and can be printed directly from the browser or saved as a PDF.
