Case Study: Flood Mitigation

An upmarket serviced office and conference base is a Grade II listed building, sits by the River Thames, on London’s Embankment. A combined mains sewer and surface water drainage system runs alongside it, and in heavy rainfalls, the plant room floods, requiring expensive remedial works and significant risk to business continuity. Kessel Drainage Solutions, the global pump manufacturer, called in Metcor Environmental to assess the problem and recommend solutions for overcoming the challenges. Metcor conducted a free survey, with our engineers studying plans of the building, then checking and tracing all water pipe and drainage systems, tanks, pumps and electrical installations.

They created an up-to-date CAD plan, marking the building’s water and waste management systems in detail, which the client keeps for future reference, and identified 11 issues in drainage and a further 12 issues with the electrical supplies, which it detailed in two reports with images.

The Challenges

The Victorian Grade II listed building meant that access to the plant room was heavily restricted by narrow entrances, staircases and corridors, posing problems for the extraction of old equipment and the installation of new.

The building resides in a tightly controlled City of London noise restriction area, where noisy works could only take place between 6am and 2.30pm on Saturdays. The client did not want the walls in the plant room to be drilled.

The solution

With the recommendations in the report accepted and approved, Metcor implemented them within 4 weeks.

Bringing large and heavy plant into the building:

• The two new pumps each weighed a quarter of a ton, and there was no entry space large enough to winch the new tank into place.
• Metcor Environmental and Anglo Pump’s experience in bringing large plant into confined spaces came in handy: the tank was delivered as a ‘flat pack’, carried down to the plant room and built on-site by Metcor engineers.
• The pumps were brought to their required site using specialised motorised battery powered stair climbers and transport.

Managing the noise restrictions:

• The plant room and light well were soundproofed specifically for these works, so that Metcor engineers could work every night on the tasks.

No drilling:

• An internal unistructure was built to avoid drilling into the walls.

New sensors and new electrical power supply:

New electrical supplies, panels, and distribution board were installed by Metcor’s sister company, Aylesford Electrical, an established NICEIC specialist for 40 years, with clients including leading corporations and government departments, such as CBRE, JLL, Cushman & Wakefield, Savills, SGN, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and the NHS.