Metals and Plant Ltd was contracted to undertake the demolition, dismantling, decontamination and asbestos removal works over a 16.5-acre live site in Doncaster for Pegler’s Yorkshire. This contract was conducted over a ten-month period and required in excess of 1200 tonne of redundant equipment carefully dismantled and removed form site.
As with most of our clients who operate a 24hr / 7 days a week production line, which in some cases came within 1m of our work area, safety of their / our personal and avoiding disruption to production was paramount.
Logistically this was a challenging contract due to the works being spread across the vast footprint of site, coupled with the live single narrow access / egress road to remove all material down the centre of site (highlighted green on the google earth picture), to gain access to the rear compound / processing area (highlighted purple on the google earth). The client’s key safety concerns were working at heights as a large proportion of the works were conducted on a three-storey roof (highlighted blue on the google earth picture). Lifting operations, removal of licensed and un-licensed asbestos in various areas on site, the extensive contamination to all redundant plant and associated work areas / pits / floors etc and its associated potential fire hazard.
Considering the complexity of the contract, six month of extensive consultations between M&P and Pegler’s Yorkshire was necessary prior to the contract starting, which enabled an in depth programme of the works to be developed to suit both parties, then in turn allowing site / task specific RAMS to be produced to allow all works to be undertaken safely.
Initial enabling works consisted of removing 3nr 1.5m diameter heavy metal fume extraction ducts that ran 200m down the live narrow access road at a height of 6m. These ran from the roof mounted micropul system to the front of the property (blue highlighted area on google earth view) to the chimney stack situated in the centre of site. Due to logistics and the access road needing to be utilised continually for the production line to function, lifting the duct sections down in large sections was unfortunately not an option. So, M&P engineers had to formulise a plan to utilise specialised hot and cold cutting techniques to process the ducting into manageable section to aid in its removal. An adjacent buildings asbestos roof was then removed and legally disposed of by M&P to allow the new Camfil Farr extraction plant to be installed and commissioned by the client prior to the main works starting.
This then allowed the main section of works to be undertaken which initially consisted of dismantling and removing the remainder of the roof top micropul system. This was made up of 23nr 10m (h) x 3m (w) x 4m (d) hoppers, 3nr vent stacks, associated 1.5m diameter pipework, associated low level supportive structural steel work and access gantry bridges which linked the 2nr micropul roof spaces. Again M&P engineers had to use a combination of specialised hot and cold cutting techniques, along with mechanical dismantling to carefully de-construct the equipment, then crane down each section under contract lift conditions into the tight access road, then remove to the rear compound to be processed.
Once the micropul was removed, attention turned to demolishing the internal buildings, dismantling and removing from site a 600 tonne and 1000 tonne brass extruding presses, 2nr associated furnaces which were lined with licensed asbestos, 1nr gantry crane and all associated flues, ducts, pipework and ancillary equipment. With hot works minimised due to extensive contamination in this area and potential fire hazards, equipment was again mechanically dismantled where possible and then removed, with some dismantled components / lifts in excess of 30 tonne each.
The pump room was also dismantled and removed at this time which consisted of 7nr large pumping stations, and 3nr 12m high x 2m diameter x 150mm gauge steel pressure vessels which protruded through the internal mezzanine structure to the 3rd floor space and only accessible via a single width staircase. With the building having been built around the pressure vessels and with no means of accessing them with lifting aids, M&P engineers had to formalise a safe methodology to firstly process the tanks into manageable sections that aid in their removal and keep within manual handling guidelines, then remove the processed sections from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor work area respectively.
The last stage of the works was to decontaminate the floor, pits and associated trenches, then process and remove a cast concrete raised plinth to the rear of the workshop. During these works M&P engineers discovered additional asbestos containing material which was not highlighted on the refurbishment & demolition survey. This had been used as shuttering around ducts under the raised slab and again required M&P engineers to call on their extensive experience to rectify and remove in a safe manner.
This contract was complete before schedule and without incident, much to the delight of the client, and is testimony to the hard work and dedication to detail from the M&P engineers involved in the works.
