Plastic Surgeon has partnered with Construction News to produce an informative series of industry briefings. Download them from the Plastic Surgeon website...

The government will spend £22bn on construction projects over the next three years, according to cabinet office minister, Francis Maude, who stated that the spending figures will be confirmed later in the autumn, along with further details on exactly what projects the money will be going on...

The sustainability debate and the roll out of the Code for Sustainable Homes has put carbon reduction at the forefront of almost everybody’s mind in the construction industry, though there still remains a great deal of uncertainty as to the right course of action to follow...

Such is the importance of the construction industry to the UK economy as a whole that its relative ‘health and wealth’ has the ability to significantly affect the figures for GDP. Just as when the country finally climbed out of recession in the second half of last year...

“Since the last newsletter, I can report that March was the most successful month for Plastic Surgeon ever; and this, I feel, must be indicative that the construction industry is beginning to recover, albeit a slow and gradual process.

Plastic Surgeon is pleased to announce it has been shortlisted as a finalist at the 2011 National Recycling Awards, under the category of ‘Waste Minimisation’ for its ‘repair not replace’ sustainable strategy...

On March 29th 2011, Plastic Surgeon hit the headlines in The Telegraph...

Stone has been used as a building material for thousands of years, its appeal to humankind being that it is strong, durable and above all attractive. The colours from the various minerals within give it a depth...

Architects often talk about a building’s glazing “making the connection between the interior spaces, and the landscape beyond”, but such is the sensitivity of the human eye, that there only needs to be some slight blemish on the glass to break...

Technical Journalist and Editor of Modern Methods of Construction, Bruce Meechan, talks to the Managing Director of Crittall Windows...

We regularly encounter the same causes of damage to surfaces, the type that happens so easily, usually resulting in a few choice words. Here are the ‘top 5’ regular glass offenders. When you have a surface that gets damaged...

The top 10 items we repaired in 2010, and the total amounts we saved from going to landfill...

2010 ended much as it began, with snow and ice blanketing much of the country – and the construction industry largely at a standstill. It may be a situation we need to get used to, and like those responsible for our roads or airports...

According to the widely used waste hierarchy, recycling is only 4th on the list of priorities. The top priority is to eliminate waste, by not creating it in the first place....

Scientists have studied more than 7,200 tree fossils from the past 2,500 years, looking at their growth rings to show links between climate change and major events in human history.

We really can repair almost anything! The photos show a badly damaged hot tub which was expertly repaired by one of our finishers up in Scotland. Much cheaper and faster than having to replace it with a new hot tub, which is just as well for the customer, as the snow continues to fall and the temperature drops even lower.

Plastic Surgeon is the overall award winner of the DEBI Environmental Awards 2010, and winner of the Environmental Goods and Services category. The firm's co founder, Managing Director, Rob Mouser, impressed the judges by his clear commitment to minimising waste and his wider ethos of good environmental...

“As 2010 draws to a close, many people will be breathing a sigh of relief that they have survived one of the most crippling recessions in living memory...

Technical journalist and Editor of Modern Methods of Construction, Bruce Meechan, interviews the Contracts Director for one of the UK’s leading cladding specialists...

At Labour's annual conference Alan Ritchie, general secretary of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT), warned that public sector cuts would lead to a "huge loss" of job opportunities for construction workers...

Events quite literally took a ‘turn’ for the worse for a shop-fitting contractor working inside one of London’s landmark sites when a number of new hardwood benches it had fitted began to warp and split...

Something as simple as blocked gutters on a block of flats has led to Plastic Surgeon carrying out a two week contract for one of its regular customers North of the Border...

In our research centre at Head Office we’ve recently developed a new improved stone repair system. This involves two stages, part one filling and part two coating...

Laminate is widely used in the building industry, but it is very easy to damage. These are the 'top 5' causes of damage that we come across...

Repairing rather than replacing can save money, time, landfill and your reputation. These are the top ten items we repaired from July to September 2010...

When a building component has been damaged by accident or by vandalism and a claim lodged with an insurance company the most cost effective solution may well be for the insurer to call on us...

Amongst the strategies announced by the new Government has been the Green Deal which is intended to encourage people to make substantial improvements to the performance of their properties...

Events quite literally took a ‘turn’ for the worse for a shop-fitting contractor working inside one of London’s landmark sites when a number of new hardwood benches it had fitted began to warp and split due to the tightly controlled humidity levels maintained in the building...

Plastic Surgeon, the market leading cosmetic repair specialist, has been awarded SAFEcontractor accreditation for 2010 / 2011...

Plastic Surgeon, the UK’s market leader in cosmetic repairs both inside and outside the home, is able to offer a rapid repair service for landlords...

Maintaining social housing property to the correct standards by replacing broken items can be expensive and time consuming. With the economy still uncertain, keeping housing stock in the marketplace is financially crucial to social landlords...

With more and more people choosing the sustainable route of repairing rather than replacing damaged construction materials, it is inevitable that they are going to need the services of companies such as Plastic Surgeon...

Just last month, the Government axed the Building Schools for the Future initiative, which Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, described as “bureaucratic and wasteful.”...

One of Plastic Surgeon’s established contractor clients has called on the snagging and repair specialist to help address a number of specialist tasks which required rectification in the final run up to the handover of a new school building in the North West built under the BSF Pathfinder programme...

When accidental damage occurs for more and more facilities managers responsible for healthcare properties it’s Plastic Surgeon to the rescue. Founded in 1985, the Devon-based company is now the UK’s largest and only national provider of cosmetic repairs - indoors and out...
 

We have all heard that a company’s net income or loss is called the ‘bottom line,’ because it is typically found on the last line of a business’s income statement. It can also be used for emphasis, to make a point...

Bruce Meechan (B.Sc. Civ. Eng.), a leading technical journalist and Editor of MMC Magazine, talks to Hayley Gilmour, a project quantity surveyor for BAM, one of the UK’s most forward thinking building contractors about the issues of waste management and snagging for handover...

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is to cut £34 million spending on the UK’s low carbon technology programme and, while I see this as possibly short-sighted, I think we all realise that the deficit has to be reduced somehow...

The UK spends less on waste management than other European countries who are recycling significant amounts of municipal waste. In fact, we pay around 50 pence per person per week on this and recover just 22% of household waste...

We at Plastic Surgeon would like to congratulate two of our customers who are featured in the top 25 of The Sunday Times Green List 2010. The newspaper’s annual competition aims to find companies at the cutting edge of improving corporate environmental performance...

Already recognised as the foremost specialist in executing repairs and snagging for the construction industry, Plastic Surgeon is continuing to expand its range of services through the development of new techniques and the purchase of sophisticated new equipment...

Assembly Square is an office development by Bam Construction on Cardiff Bay, where the aggressive saline atmosphere had led to a marine paint finish being specified for all of the external metal fire doors...

Plastic Surgeon is continuing to help its clients to reduce their landfill bills, saving them £104,208 in landfill taxes alone (excluding VAT) last year by preventing 78,925 items from going to waste thanks to its ‘don’t skip it, fix it’ policy...

High street giant, Marks & Spencer, has outlined plans to become the UK’s most sustainable retailer by 2015 as part of its so called Plan A programme. Among 80 commitments added to the original 100 outlined in 2007 are pledges to cease sending operational and construction waste to landfill...

Fine finishing company, Plastic Surgeon Ltd, has been called in to rectify damage to internal building components at Link62 Data Centre, a huge warehouse facility which will be used to store digital information...
 

For some of our colleagues in the construction industry it may seem a little soon to be focussing on problems that arise out of recovery, but for those of us who have survived previous recessions, there certain situations which appear cyclical...

Working in the building and construction industry we need to constantly innovate to keep pace with the latest developments in interior and exterior surfaces. At our head office in Devon, our research centre is constantly developing new repair techniques...

We regularly encounter the same causes of damage to the same surfaces, the type of damage that happens so easily, usually resulting in a few choice words. We’ll be compiling a ‘top 5’ of the regular offenders in each issue...

Damage on a busy site is costly. Repairing rather than replacing can save money, time, landfill and most importantly your reputation. Big or small, ceramic or glass, metal, plastic, stone or wood – these are the top ten items we’ve repaired so far this year...

The Link62 Data Centre is a huge warehouse facility, approximately the size of 12 football pitches which has been constructed by Laing O’Rourke. A large number of interlocking internal cladding panels with a highly reflective paint finish to the steel became damaged...

Plastic Surgeon were challenged to finish 40 10m tall lampposts to an exacting metallic finish. Clearly painting them using traditional hand techniques was not an option...

A recent assignment for Plastic Surgeon was caused by vandalism, where an intruder attacked four doors in a medical research building.

The contract focused on the new Biomedical Building at Strathclyde University...

News that six more local authorities across England have joined the Building Schools for the Future programme and will share nearly £420 million of Government investment presents a real opportunity for sustainability principals to be applied by the application of smart ‘’Don’t skip -it fix it‘’ processes...

As more local authorities join the BSF programme, Plastic Surgeon, provider of cosmetic building repairs, has stressed the opportunity for projects to be more sustainable by repairing, not replacing.

News that six more local authorities have joined the Building Schools for the Future programme and will share nearly £420 million of Government investment presents a real opportunity for sustainability principals to be applied by the application of smart ‘Don’t skip it – fix it’ processes...

The repair specialist, Plastic Surgeon, has introduced a new technique for repairing reconstituted or wet-cast stone. Such manufactured masonry is commonplace on modern construction projects, taking the place of more expensive natural quarried stone, and offering consistent strength...

Building involves too many trades for contracts or refurbs to go smoothly, and the closer you get to completion, the more hectic it becomes, and the more likely that one trade will damage another’s work. And that tradesmen’s eyes will be increasingly dim when it comes to the chips, scuffs, scratches and knocks....

While the papers and news broadcasts have been full for the last fortnight, relating stories of world leaders and environmental campaigners having meetings through the night to hammer out a deal at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, Plastic Surgeon has been keeping up its own round-the-clock efforts to save the planet.

Generating a blog definitely brings a new perspective to everyday life and should, I think, repeatedly pose the question: are the matters and meanderings that I’m banging on about really of any interest to the people out there surfing the ‘net.

Calls this week for schoolchildren to begin receiving careers advice from the age of seven met with predictably mixed reactions from parents, teachers, and the wider public; comments varying from cautiously welcoming the initiative, to saying it’s too young or how can it be shoe-horned into an already over-crowded curriculum?

A huge mural covering one entire wall of a swimming pool building at a hotel on the English Riviera has been the subject of a sensitive repair contract carried out by Plastic Surgeon, a specialist in cosmetic repair for clients across the construction sector.

The MMC agenda may be moving sections of the building industry away from some of the more inefficient practices of the past, but new legislation now means that controlling waste is not only desirable on environmental grounds, but actually becomes a financial necessity. And therefore repairing damaged products...

Things could be hotting up for us at Plastic Surgeon - the Olympic Delivery Authority has just signed up to WRAP’s (Waste & Resources Action Programme) Construction Commitments: Halving Waste to Landfill initiative. Which could mean that we will get involved with the Olympic scheme, seeing that we do a lot of repair work...

The upsurge in off-site manufacturing, or Modern Methods of Construction as it is commonly referred to, has served to highlight what a problematic element to the building process, kitchens and bathrooms represent.

The Butlins holiday group has opened a new spa hotel at its site in Bognor Regis with the repair specialist, Plastic Surgeon, playing a full part in the final preparations for the grand opening this summer at which the famous seaside resort’s mayor officiated.

Using kitchen and bathroom pods is one means of ensuring minimum defects at a building’s handover, but for those choosing to fit-out such rooms in-situ, dealing with a variety of physical imperfections remains a financial and logistical burden. Rob Mouser puts forward the case for repair as opposed to replacement.

The leading exhibition for the construction industry, Interbuild is the place for bringing together leading suppliers of building materials, equipment and services face-to-face with clients and buyers from across the UK...