Where the screed sits in your programme
On a precast frame, the screed is wedged between two immovable neighbours. Behind it, the frame cycle: planks craned in floor by floor, joints grouted, decks released. Ahead of it, every follow-on trade that needs a flat, dry, protected floor: partitions, mechanical and electrical, coverings, joinery. The screed is rarely the longest item on the programme. It is very often the one that decides whether the others start on time.
This is written for the people who own that problem: site managers, planners and buyers at main contractors running multi-storey education, residential and healthcare frames.
The dependencies that bite
- Deck readiness, honestly assessed. A deck is ready when the joints are grouted, the perimeter detail is closed, penetrations are formed and the level survey is done. A deck that is 90% ready produces 100% of a delay, because the pour is planned around continuous coverage.
- The crane, and not needing it. If screeding plant has to be craned up, the screed joins the queue for the tower crane and inherits every slip ahead of it. Our track-mounted placing booms and line pumps reach upper decks from the ground, which takes the screed out of the crane schedule entirely. See concrete pumping and placing.
- Drying, from day one. Follow-on trades do not wait for the screed to be laid, they wait for it to be dry enough. The covering manufacturer's moisture requirement sets that date. It belongs on the programme as a duration of its own, agreed at tender, not discovered when the flooring contractor arrives with a meter.
- Protection and loading. A freshly laid deck has a period where foot traffic, point loads and trade storage will damage it. Agree the handback condition and the protection regime before the pour, so the floor you get at finishes stage is the floor we surveyed at handover.
Floor by floor, without drama
The pattern that works on multi-storey precast frames is simple: screed slotted into the frame cycle in sections, a floor or part-floor at a time, each pour planned against the deck release ahead of it. Pumped systems cover a deck fast and level themselves. Self-compacting systems also remove the late power floating visit, so no crew returns to the floor in the evening and the deck hands back cleanly to the next trade.
We programme from the ready date backwards, and on multi-storey work we will tell you at tender whether the cycle you have is realistic for the screed. If it is not, better to renegotiate a cycle on paper in the tender period than on site in front of a liquidated damages clause.
What you get at handback
Surface regularity survey against the specified BS 8204 class, pour records, delivery tickets, and the deck survey the depths were set from. RAMS agreed before mobilisation, including boom set-up and outrigger loadings. Directly employed teams and our own plant throughout, which is how the dates we give survive contact with the site. Constructionline Gold registered. More on how we work with main contractors: a subcontractor that protects your programme.
Common questions
When can follow-on trades start after a screed pour?
Does screeding need the tower crane?
What makes a precast deck ready for screeding?
Can the screed follow the frame cycle floor by floor?
How should the screed be protected after handback?
Running a precast frame with a screed on the critical path? Send the programme and the drawings to info@trentcs.com or call 01283 480110. Our hub page covers the full scope: screeds on precast concrete planks.