When approached by a national water authority to quote for an unusual job, we found it beneficial to attend the site to assess the risks and to discuss with on the ground operatives about their expectations surrounding the requirement. This particular job spanned separate sites and several different areas within each site. Our Sales Director, Steve Phillips made sure that he visited all the sites to understand the complexities of installing the equipment that was about to be procured.

All of the areas were very damp environments. Not surprising I here you say for a water authority! The buildings are the pumping stations that allow the flow of water to be adjusted across residential and commercial boundaries. Our brief was to supply and install racking, shelving and workbenches into areas that are used as storerooms, maintenance rooms and repair points. But it was evident that whatever equipment was to be supplied, it would need to be suitable to be used in wet conditions and could not be susceptible to rusting or corroding over time. Typically, these buildings are often Victorian or Edwardian and the layouts are not easily conducive to accepting modern installation methods and tooling because in most cases they were listed properties. Some parts of the sites were without electricity and almost all had a myriad of ducting, pipework and cabling to contend with. Steve quickly found that no two buildings were alike so our work would need to be carried out on a very room specific basis. The shelving would need to be cut on site to fit around the existing obstructions like the pipework and brickwork pillars. Great care would be needed to retain the load integrity of each bay or component part. Often major ongoing building works were in evidence throughout the project and the delivery of component parts to site would need to be hand balled into place because fork lift trucks were prohibited and pallet trucks/sack trucks were not suitable to move the items into place. The on site cutting processes had to be carried out under a 'Hot Works Permit' to comply with H & S regulations and we duly issued full risk assessment and method statement documentation for each site. We had factored in a two man installation team for one day at each site but we found that the complexities of some sites meant that an extra full day was eventually required to complete the job.

 


We based our supply on the very popular Midi Span Galvanised Shelving System which has both galvanised frames, beams and decking panels. This is excellent for wet and corrosive areas and also comes with a massive 660kg capacity as well. It is easy to build which means that it would be possible to relocate to new areas if that was ever felt necessary.  This was also supplemented with our Expo 3 Galvanised Shelving which has a lower capacity at 300kg but allows for smaller sections and deck lengths.

Finally we supplied our Super Heavy Duty Workbenches. They have a massive 1500kg capacity and were perfect to offer the support of very heavy plant that is often being worked on.

  
  
As I am sure you agree this was an unusual project but one that we can take great pride in being involved with. We proved that we can be highly adaptable when working in restricted areas or with limited space to carry out installations.

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