Exchange House
Strip Out & Enabling
| Client: | British Land |
| Project: | Exchange House |
Brief Description:
KpH Deconstruction undertook this 21 week Strip Out & Enabling project as Principal Contractor at Exchange House, London, for the client, British Land, alongside Project Manager, Gardiner & Theobold.
Exchange House, positioned at the head of Exchange Square, is one of 14 buildings in London’s Broadgate development. It is located directly over British Rail train tracks that run north of the historic Liverpool Street Station.
Our works were undertaken on Levels 9 & 10 with live offices to the rest of the building, so mitigating disturbance was of great importance to the project and every effort was made to ensure this was achieved. Noisy works which included breaking of screed and cutting metal was undertaken out of hours, usually after 7pm. The team had to negotiate works around a number of live retained services which were running at high level, on both floors and were serving vital areas of the rest of the building.
A significant challenge for the project was the removal of waste from the floors at the end of each working shift. The multiple impairment of both floors meant that any combustible material could not be stored within the floor area overnight. There was little to no storage in the loading bay so it meant that the works had to be very carefully planned and logistics for waste removal vehicles monitored closely to ensure that we were not repeatedly moving waste around the building to avoid it being left on the floors.
Two Health & Safety visits were made by Arcadis, British Land’s H&S Advisor and the team achieved 100% on each visit.
Fire Cladding
A major part of these works was the procurement of the fire cladding package and intumescent spray painting of the beams which would be left exposed as part of the refurbishment works. We partnered with SBS Ltd for this portion of the works, who had successfully completed similar works for British Land at a nearby site. The scope of their works were as follows:
All areas of steelwork cleaned and fire rated polyethene sheeting installed using foil tape approximately 4 areas per time. The areas were enclosed to ensure that the ambient conditions with dew point, humidity and heat was created whilst also delivering a fume extraction system as per health & safety guidelines. These zones were maintained throughout the programme.
The steels were mechanically cleaned with grinders and wire attachments to an ST3 British Standard to ensure the correct preparation suitable to accept primer and base coat. The existing pins were carefully removed ensuring an impression wasn’t left that would show through the intumescent paint finish and top seal. All areas were protected using dust extractors with air in and out. Once fully cleaned all residue was swept and placed into sacks and deposited to a skip or waste bins.
All areas were maintained continuously and hoovered again prior to paint being applied to prevent contaminants in the atmosphere which settles on the wet finish and degrades the appearance.
Heaters were used to keep all areas at an ambient temperature for painting – at least 3 degrees and rising with 4 x daily readings of dew point and humidity to ensure a supportive ambient climate for spraying and adhesion.
Once the steels were at an acceptable ST3 standard that ensured a key for the primer – they were again wiped clean and the surrounding areas with tack rags to remove any contaminants prior to priming. Sherwin Williams C400V3 primer was then applied to the required DFT.
When primer was fully cured Sherwin Williams FX5090 water based basecoat was applied to individual steel DFT thicknesses which were be in accordance with the manufacturer’s literature to achieve the specified fire rating of 90 minutes.
When the basecoat was cured Sherwin Williams M770 top seal was applied to the required DFT.
All areas were then made free of sheeting, plant and materials and handed over as a finished area to the client.
SBS put together a fantastic site video !
Scope of Strip Out Works
The works comprise of the internal Strip Out back to shell, including the removal of:
- soft and hard floor finishes
- plasterboard and glazed partitions
- ceilings
- M&E services above ceilings
- raised access flooring
- underfloor services
- columns/beams casings
- fire protection/cladding from beams
- Metal staircase between Level 9 & 10
- WC’s
- Careful removal of double coated bomb film from Levels 9 and 10.
Working with Globechain
KpH discussed with the project team at the start of the works the requirement to work alongside Globechain to identify, photograph and publish items that could be collected by charities for re-use or re-purpose rather than sending away to be recycled. Despite having reached out to local charities on other projects this was the first time KpH had engaged in such a service and lessons were learnt throughout the process which have subsequently been taken onto other projects where we have successfully worked alongside Globechain once again.
Globechain is the leading reuse marketplace connecting companies with non profits, small businesses and people to redistribute unneeded items. They generate ESG data on impact, helping to reduce waste costs and achieve sustainability and SDG targets.
Our Site Team worked tirelessly to ensure that as much as possible was re-used factoring in the logistical challenges that the works presented. Some of the items we managed to redistribute included office carpet tiles, carpets, ceiling lights, doors and blinds all of which went to worthwhile causes.
