Sustainable cosmetic repair - Save our Surfaces
Author: Bruce Meechan B.Sc. Civ. Eng
April 2013
Executive Summary
As the UK's most proactive and only truly national cosmetic repair specialist, Plastic Surgeon sees its position in the country's construction industry as not only a key service provider, but also a thought leader, upon whom it is incumbent to help inform other professionals about the potential benefits of repair.
The company continues to invest heavily in research and development as well as its on-line technical support, offering clients a constantly expanding range of tools to improve their own performance. Now it has added the 'Save Our Surfaces' campaign to encourage wider participation with a repair focussed strategy which has rapidly expanded from housebuilding and main contracting into such areas as insurance and facilities management.
In order to provide an objective overview of the campaign's significance, Plastic Surgeon has commissioned this White Paper, exploring the background to repair, sustainability and the markets to which it can be applied.
As a civil engineer and builder with 25 years' experience as a technical journalist, Bruce Meechan is also editor of Housing Association magazine, published by Waverley Communications. His career, which includes a period working on social housing refurbishment and conversions in London, as well as time on new-build sites, has given Bruce an unrivalled insight into the public housing sector where maintenance, repair and improvement account for the vast majority of the total spend.
In fact, on top of their annual 'planned and responsive maintenance' budgets, the UK's housing associations are now the primary delivery vehicle for the £1.3 Billion a year ECO (Energy Companies Obligation) initiative which is focused on improving the thermal performance of hard-to-treat, mainly solid wall properties.
This document also covers the other main types of property, products and substrates which come within the compass of cosmetic repair and that all benefit from an ethos of conserving natural resources, rather than irresponsibly disposing of them.
To request a PDF copy of the complete white paper, please email priority@plastic-surgeon.co.uk
Sustainable repair and maintenance for facilities management
Author: Bruce Meechan, B.Sc Civ. Eng.
August 2011
Executive Summary
As a respected profession having upward of 80,000 members, and with many more people performing at least some similar functions, facilities managers are integral to the continuing performance of properties during their service life, and are also sometimes involved in the later phases of construction or commissioning.
In fact it does not matter how well a building is designed and constructed, or how effectively it may have been refurbished, the way it is occupied and operated – including the standard of maintenance - will have the greatest influence on the whole life cost.
Within the scope of this document - commissioned by Plastic Surgeon, the UK's largest provider of cosmetic repair services across the built environment - the author explores the breadth of the responsibilities borne by facilities managers, and those with related job descriptions, as well as the constraints within which legislation requires that they must work.
The following sections therefore consider the many different elements to both contemporary and period properties which inevitably suffer from minor damage as a result of everyday occupation, accident and natural processes. Also in relation to the very individual service and bespoke repair techniques offered by Plastic Surgeon and its highly trained finishers, the paper explains how it is possible to make good almost any surface, or substrate.
Crucially such work is almost always carried out in-situ, while the flexibility of the regionally based workforce and the care given to making the interventions of low impact, it is possible for Plastic Surgeon to carry out its work with the absolute minimum of disruption across the whole spectrum of client sectors.
Beyond the physical effects of having a specialist company carry out cosmetic repairs, as an alternative to employing in-house maintenance staff or a variety of external trade contractors, the document also assesses the quantifiable reduction that can be made in an organization's environmental impact: repair being shown to greatly reduce the consumption of resources and waste sent to landfill, associated with going down the replacement route.
If you would like to receive a PDF of the complete Whitepaper, please email priority@plastic-surgeon.co.uk
Sustainable Repair & Maintenance for Social Housing
Author: Bruce Meechan, B.Sc Civ. Eng.
May 2011
Executive Summary
The work of the affordable housing sector and its building industry partners, towards achieving the Decent Homes standard, and of maintaining the stock as a whole has seen many billions spent on repair, replacement and upgrade; and yet the task can never be viewed as completed.
Properties 'fall out of decency' constantly as a result of wear and tear, while accidental damage by both occupants and workers involved in carrying out other building operations eat up vast sums of money.
In this document, Plastic Surgeon outlines the challenges faced and offers the sector an insight into a repair service that can rightly be described as unique: assessing the financial, social and sustainability benefits of undertaking cosmetic improvements as a highly viable alternative to replacement, as well as to utilizing individual trades personnel to carry out tasks they are often ill equipped to attempt.
If you would like to receive a PDF of the complete Whitepaper, please email priority@plastic-surgeon.co.uk
