ALIMATS® aluminium crane mats are available for single day, weekly or long-term hire with 24/7 UK delivery, guest quoting, and every mat inspected and cleaned before it goes back out.
Brilliant Ideas Ltd hires out ALIMATS®, its patented modular aluminium crane mat system, with 24/7 UK delivery on single day, weekly or long-term terms. Get a guest quote without creating an account, and every mat is inspected, cleaned and quality-checked before it goes back out on hire.
Brilliant Ideas manufactures ALIMATS from certified recycled extruded aluminium alloy 6005A. Every mat is available to hire or buy, so you can match the commercial arrangement to the job rather than the other way round.
Hire terms cover single day, weekly and long-term hire, alongside outright purchase for contractors who want mats on the books permanently. Long-term hire and purchased mats can also be painted in corporate colours on request.
This flexibility matters on live sites, where a lift can move from a one-off outrigger job to a multi-week programme with little notice. Because ALIMATS modules interlock into configurations from 1.34 square metres up to 8.07 square metres, the same hire fleet covers small pad-replacement jobs through to full crane mat platforms for heavy lifts.
Brilliant Ideas runs its own FORS Bronze fleet of vans under 3.5 tonnes, with its own delivery drivers rather than a third-party haulier. Drivers hold CSCS cards, and most are CPCS certified, so they understand a working crane pad site and don't need managing on arrival.
Delivery operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with fully automated proof of delivery, so there's a clear record of what arrived, where and when, without paperwork chasing.
The ALIMATS configurator supports a guest quote flow, so you can build a mat configuration and get a price without logging in first. For a one-off hire or an urgent job, that's one less step between deciding what you need and ordering it.
Signing in gives you a saved checkout with delivery addresses and order history, which speeds up repeat orders across multiple sites or ongoing framework hire. Neither path is gated behind the other, use whichever fits how you work.
Hired mats don't go straight from one site to the next. Every mat returned from hire is fully inspected, cleaned and quality-checked before it is made available for redeployment.
For a temporary works engineer specifying load spread, that matters as much as the initial safe working load rating. A mat that's been dropped, chipped or bent on a previous job and not caught before going out again is a liability on the next one. Routine inspection on every return closes that gap.
The core ALIMATS range runs across eight plan sizes, from 1.346 square metres (1.160m x 1.160m) up to 8.073 square metres (3.480m x 2.320m), built from modules weighing between 13kg and 48kg. Because every module is handleable by hand, configurations can be built and struck without needing separate lifting plant on site.
Safe working load varies by configuration and goes up to 80 tonnes in the core range, with ALIMATS sitting comfortably under cranes up to 150 tonnes depending on the specific outrigger load and configuration chosen. Safe working load data is independently verified with a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers, so the numbers a temporary works team relies on have been checked outside the business that makes the product.
For higher outrigger loads, the Half Loader module moves load away from the mat centre and spreads it across two locations, reducing pressure on the supporting ground and, in some cases, removing the need for a separate crane pad altogether.
Brilliant Ideas ran a purpose-built bending test rig, using a 500mm x 500mm, 30mm-deep steel plate under three-point load to simulate a mobile crane outrigger, and compared ALIMATS aluminium directly against a competing UHMW-PE plastic mat of equivalent scale. At 1 tonne, the plastic mat deflected 102mm while the equivalent ALIMATS mat deflected 2mm. At 2.25 tonnes, the plastic mat deflected 328mm against 3mm for ALIMATS. At 3.5 tonnes, a double-layer plastic mat deflected 161mm against 8mm for a single-layer ALIMATS mat.
| Property | ALIMATS Aluminium (6005A) | Ekki/Azobe Timber (D70) | Oak Timber (D40) | Nylanite | Plastic (UHMWPE) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Compressive strength (MPa) | 280 | 34 | 26 | 123 | 21 |
Tensile strength (MPa) | 270 | 42 | 24 | 78 | 28 |
Modulus of elasticity (MPa) | 69000 | 20000 | 13000 | 3000 | 1350 |
Property:
ALIMATS Aluminium (6005A):
Ekki/Azobe Timber (D70):
Oak Timber (D40):
Nylanite:
Plastic (UHMWPE):
Property:
ALIMATS Aluminium (6005A):
Ekki/Azobe Timber (D70):
Oak Timber (D40):
Nylanite:
Plastic (UHMWPE):
Property:
ALIMATS Aluminium (6005A):
Ekki/Azobe Timber (D70):
Oak Timber (D40):
Nylanite:
Plastic (UHMWPE):
The reason is stiffness, not just strength. Plastic mats such as UHMWPE and HDPE have reasonably high compressive strength but low stiffness, which means load triangulates through the mat to the ground rather than spreading across it, particularly on compressible ground. Aluminium's modulus of elasticity of 69,000 MPa is more than three times that of Ekki hardwood timber and around 20 times that of standard plastic mat material, which is why it holds its shape under load rather than bowing.
This distinction is set out in the industry design guide *Construction Ground Condition for Plant* (October 2014), which separates strength from stiffness as distinct properties. For stiffness, the order runs steel, aluminium, timber, nylon, then polyethylene. For compressive strength alone, the order is steel, aluminium, nylon, polyethylene, then timber, which is why compressive strength claims on their own can be misleading if the test rig sits on a compressible surface.
ALIMATS is used by more than 80 percent of the UK's top twenty Tier 1 contractors, and by named crane hire operators including Ainscough, King Lifting, Kranserv, Marsh Plant, Bennett, Berry and Sparrow, among others.
Portakabin
The ALIMATS® system works well – we use them on 9/10 jobs. Our temporary works team look at the ground, do the calculations and there’s never a problem with specifying these mats to spread the load. They interlock and are easy to set-up without heavy plant
Crane pads are for smaller outrigger loads, up to around 1.0 square metre, supplied as single round or square units. For that category, Brilliant Ideas only recommends certified Nylanite Nylacast Big Foot pads, not standard HDPE pads.
Crane mats handle larger outrigger loads, typically above 1.0 square metre, and this is where ALIMATS configurations come in. A Nylacast pad is often used alongside an ALIMATS configuration on the same job, protecting the mat surface and optimising load transfer at the outrigger point, so the two products frequently work together rather than as alternatives.
Brilliant Ideas runs its own FORS Bronze fleet of vans under 3.5 tonnes, with its own delivery drivers, most of whom hold CPCS certification alongside their CSCS cards, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week across the UK. As a real-world example, Ainscough Crane Hire ordered a 7.06 square metre mat configuration at 2.50pm and had it on site in Grangemouth by 8.02am the next morning, all within 18 hours.
Yes. The ALIMATS configurator supports a guest quote flow so you can price up a mat configuration and request hire without logging in. If you hire regularly, signing in gives you a saved checkout with order history, but it is not required to get a price or place a single-job order.
ALIMATS can be hired for a single day, by the week, or on a long-term basis, and outright purchase is also available if that suits the job better. Mats can be painted in corporate colours on request for long-term or purchased orders.
Every mat is fully inspected, cleaned and quality-checked when it comes back from hire, before it is made available to go out again. This is standard practice on every return, not an optional extra.
Configurations in the core range run from 1.34 square metres up to 8.07 square metres, with safe working loads that vary by configuration and go up to 80 tonnes. ALIMATS sit comfortably under cranes up to 150 tonnes, with the specific safe working load for a job set by the configuration chosen and confirmed against ground conditions.
Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland postcodes are currently blocked on the public self-serve configurator and calculator. If you need mats delivered to those regions, contact Brilliant Ideas directly on 01335 345111 or enquiries@brilliantideasltd.co.uk to discuss options.
Configure a mat plan from 1.34m2 up to 8.07m2, choose single day, weekly or long-term hire, and get a price without creating an account. Guest checkout is available for quick jobs; sign in if you want saved addresses and order history for repeat hires.
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