School building repairs by Plastic Surgeon

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.

Culcheth High School in Warrington has been built by BAM construction, one of the UK's largest construction companies, and will accommodate a total of 1250 pupils in the 11-18 age range.

The premises have been constructed with an RC frame and post-tensioned concrete floors, while the walls were infilled with a highly insulated lightweight metal framing system that had suffered repeated minor damage; though there are also areas of brickwork, timber cladding and render. Elsewhere, external metal doors, the composite window frames and IPS or integrated panel systems in washrooms had suffered similar scratches.

Commenting on the involvement of Plastic Surgeon, BAM's Project Surveyor, Hayley Gilmour said: "What you are faced with is the choice of actually having to re-order some quite large components and wait for them to be made, with all the delays and extra cost this can involve. The feedback we got from Plastic Surgeon along with the account paperwork showed the total weight of products saved - which would have had to go to landfill - was 2.58 tonnes; while the actual cost could have been two or three times higher than the amount we paid for the 11 visits by Plastic Surgeon."

Summing up the experience of working with Plastic Surgeon, Hayley Gilmour reflected: "Until you actually start looking at the situation of having to replace something like an IPS unit with all the disruption, and then see the ease with which Plastic Surgeon can sort it out, you don't realize just what a good option repair is over replacement. The site manager too was amazed at the range of items that Plastic Surgeon could put right."

BAM Construction has actually been so successful in reducing its environmental footprint that it was amongst the top companies named in this years Sunday Times Green List. The company has managed to cut its carbon footprint by an impressive 11% over the past 12 months, which followed a 7% drop in the previous year. BAM spent £5.6m between 2007-9 on green strategies and employees responding to the Sunday Times survey believe that this has paid off, targeting everything from a green travel policy to recycling in the workplace.