HEADLINES
18 Months working in live school environments
2 large secondary schools worked on simultaneously
Weekend early mornings and late night working so not to impact on the school
2 Divisions Building Services and Sustainability – provided complete energy focused M&E
| Project Title | Frederick Gough School & St Bedes Catholic Voluntary Academy (Scunthorpe) |
| Client | North Lincolnshire Council |
| Contractor | Clugston Construction |
| Location | Scunthorpe |
| Value | £2.9 million |
| Duration | 18 weeks |
OVERVIEW
As part of the government’s Building Schools for the Future programme, we were commissioned by Clugston Construction to simultaneously design and build M&E services for two schools in Scunthorpe: Frederick Gough School and St Bedes Catholic Voluntary Academy.
Both required services installing in their new school buildings that were being constructed and also existing buildings that were being refurbished. G&H Building Services and Sustainability worked in partnership to deliver the most energy efficient solution possible, managing the workload, providing a single point of contact for the contractor and ensuring both schools were delivered on time.
CHALLENGE
The key challenge was ensuring none of our work impinged on pupils and staff, especially in the classroom. This meant minimising noise, ensuring there was always heating, power for lighting and electrics and no access issues – this was a challenging task given our work took 18 months to complete and we needed to regularly decommission power supplies.
SOLUTION
We regularly worked at weekends, before the school started and late into the night. Precise scheduling saw the more invasive work carried out during school holiday periods and out of core school hours.
Multi-skilled M&E operatives were regularly on-site seven days a week installing new electrical distribution; internal and external lighting; fire, disabled and intruder alarm systems; a door access system; disabled refuge, and, an interactive communication sound system in the dance studio. Mechanical works included external services across the site, low temperature hot water controlled by the BMS in all general areas and domestic water services to the new builds.
RESULTS
G&H Sustainability provided a largescale solar thermal system and an air source heat pump to achieve compliance not only with the local authority’s Building Regulations, but the contract authority requirements on both sites. The solar thermal systems provide a contribution to the hot water generation while the ASHP contributes to the underfloor heating system.
