Curb Ramps & Trench Covers

Trench covers, road plates and portable curb ramps

The range sorts by what has to cross the gap: people on foot, wheelchairs and carts, vehicles, or a fluid line carrying water or sewage.

Plastic trench covers and sidewalk boards

Composite and plastic trench covers bridge a narrow excavation in a sidewalk or walkway, so pedestrians keep a level route past utility work. The pedestrian trench cover holds the surface with a flexible edge and needs no bolts, which suits short jobs where the sidewalk cannot be drilled. The sidewalk trench board is molded from recyclable HDPE and PVC with anti-trip edges, and one person can lift it, so the crew can move covers along the trench as the work advances.

Driveway boards

A driveway board keeps a home or business reachable by car while a service trench crosses its entrance. The driveway board is rated for the whole vehicle and has fixing holes for works that run longer. The driveway trench cover is rated for one wheel of a vehicle, lays without bolts on most surfaces and has gas vents and a probe hole built in.

Steel and composite road plates

Road plates carry road traffic and heavy equipment across an open trench. Steel road plates are the usual choice on highways and in active work zones, where they are set by machine and left in place between shifts. The modular composite road plate is rated for loaded trucks yet goes down by hand in sections, which suits sites where a lifter cannot reach.

Portable curb ramps

Portable curb ramps give wheelchairs, carts and pedestrians a step-free way on and off a raised sidewalk when a work zone or event closes the permanent crossing. The wheelchair curb ramp has tapered sides that guide wheels on and off, a built-in drainage channel and no anchors to fit. The curb access ramp is a narrower plastic ramp with handles and a chevron tread, used on construction sites, at depots and in facilities where carts and light vehicles mount a curb.

Temporary manhole and hole covers

Temporary covers close a manhole or access chamber between work phases, while the permanent cover is off. The locking temporary manhole cover drops into the opening and locks with a key-turned blade, so site vehicles can drive over it without dislodging it. The high-visibility manhole guard is a yellow polypropylene cone that stands over an open square manhole as a physical and visual barrier, for openings that traffic does not need to cross.

Pipe road ramps

A low steel crossing carries a pump hose or pipe across a road that stays open, so traffic keeps moving and the line is not crushed. The pipe road ramp accepts Bauer, flange, Storz and Cardan connections for water, sewage, floodwater and industrial effluent, and it bolts down and has lifting eyes for placing. A road plate is made to bear on firm ground either side of a trench, and laying one over a hose leaves the plate resting on the line, which is why fluid lines across a live road go through a pipe ramp.

Pedestrian trench bridges

Where an excavation is too wide for a cover, a walkway bridge carries foot traffic over it. The trench bridge with handrails is aluminum, with folding rails, lifting hooks and an anti-slip deck, and comes in four lengths. Longer spans carry a lower distributed load, so the shortest length that clears the trench with bearing on both sides is the one to order. Other bridges and site stairways are in temporary bridges.

Shipping container ramps

A shipping container ramp lets a forklift drive from yard level into a container where there is no loading dock, at construction deliveries, depots and transport yards. It is steel with a checker plate surface, sized for standard containers, and optional chains with D shackles hold it to the container.

Permanent manhole covers, utility boxes and drain grates

The range also covers the castings that go in when the trench is backfilled and the surface is put back, so the temporary and permanent covers for one utility job come from the same place. The highway manhole cover is ductile iron for roads that carry heavy truck traffic. For residential streets, parking lots and other paved areas off the highway, the ductile iron manhole cover has indexed corners and a built-in lifting keyway. The light-duty manhole cover is round cast iron for driveways, sidewalks and parking courts. A utility surface box covers valves, utility vaults and telecom access in the roadway. Road drainage inlets take a storm drain grate with a captive, reversible hinge. In a paved plaza or walkway, the recessed paver access cover takes pavers in its galvanized tray, so the access point matches the surface around it.

Trench covers for sidewalks, interior work and events

Utility and telecom trenching across sidewalks

On a sidewalk, members of the public walk over the cover without warning, so trip edges and grip matter as much as load. Beveled or flexible edges, a textured surface and high-visibility yellow are what to look for, and the lightweight plastic trench cover also takes light vehicles where a sidewalk crossing meets an alley or a parking lot entrance.

Interior fit-out and slab openings

Inside a building, the openings are core holes and service voids in the slab, and the cover has to sit low and stay put so carts and workers on foot do not catch an edge. The small floor hole covers push into the hole on spring legs with no screws. The large floor hole covers screw to the slab or timber decking over larger penetrations.

Events and temporary pedestrian routes

At events, temporary routes cross curbs and service trenches, and every crossing has to be passable in a wheelchair. The portable wheelchair ramp is HDPE with integrated handles and stacks for transport and storage between events.