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Plant room strip out in Derby and across Derbyshire
Derby plant room jobs come to us from hospital and university estates, school and college buildings, business park offices and the boiler houses of engineering firms across the city. We remove redundant heating, cooling, air handling and electrical plant with the pipework and steel that served it, then land the new plant on its bases. Our crews follow the M&E contractor’s programme and work beside their fitters.
Enquiries reach us from the city centre, Pride Park, Spondon and Mickleover, and from Belper, Swadlincote and Burton-on-Trent. Photographs of the plant and its way out are usually enough to price it the same working day, and nights, weekends and shutdowns are all workable.
What a strip out covers
Our riggers take each item down into pieces that fit the way out, move them along that route on skates or a gantry and load them for removal. The replacement comes in the opposite way and lands level on its bases, where your M&E contractor connects and commissions it.
What comes out of a Derby plant room
| Plant | Where it sits | How it comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Gas boilers and calorifiers | Boiler rooms below older city-centre buildings | Cladding off, heat exchanger taken through the door in parts |
| Chillers and condensing units | Office roofs and business park units | Craned down whole, or split into modules beyond the crane’s reach |
| Air handling units | Rooftop plant rooms above offices and teaching blocks | Fans, coils and panels removed in reverse build order |
| Pumps, pressurisation sets and cold water tanks | Tank rooms at the top of the building | Pumps down in the goods lift, tank panels unbolted and stacked |
| Generators, transformers and switchgear | Ground floor switchrooms and standby compounds | Switchgear split into tiers, heavy units jacked onto skates |
| Redundant pipework, flues and support steel | Walls, ceilings and risers | Cut cold into carrying lengths |
The most awkward way out decides the method, whatever the heaviest item weighs. Each stage is set out on the plant room strip out service page.
Contact us
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Please leave a few details and a member of our plant room strip out team will be in touch to discuss your requirements in more detail.
Where we work in and around Derby
What comes out of Derby plant rooms depends on the building it serves:
Office roofs on Pride Park
Rooftop chillers and air handling units come down from offices and newer units on Pride Park, where car parks and service yards leave space for the crane. See our HVAC page.
Basements in the Cathedral Quarter and the centre
Old boilers leave the basements of offices, shops and converted buildings in the centre a section at a time, and newer student blocks add roof plant. See our construction page.
The engineering supply chain
Boilers, compressors and generators come out of the plant rooms of engineering and component firms around the city, timed for the days their lines stand idle. See our industrial sector page.
Wards and clinics that stay open
Air handling units and chillers leave hospital plant rooms beside clinical areas, on a route and at hours the estates team agrees. See our healthcare and pharma page.
University and college buildings in the summer break
Boiler, chiller and ventilation plant goes out while students are away, with the new plant running before term. See our education page.
Access and planning for a Derby plant room strip out
Five things fix the price and the dates on a Derby job:
- Staff and visitors still in the building. Access windows, noise limits, the goods lift and a protected route are settled with the building manager before the first shift.
- Craned off the roof, or brought down inside. Hire and a closure buy a quicker job with a smaller crew. The internal route swaps that for lift bookings, floor protection and more hands. Near the Derwent the land is low-lying, so outrigger positions and mats are fixed at survey.
- How far the plant comes apart. Boilers part at their sections and air handling units at the casing joints. Whatever the largest remaining piece weighs decides whether a crane is booked.
- What the slab on the route will carry. Skates put a heavy item onto a small area of slab, and ducts or voids beneath weaken it, so the route is checked and plated where needed.
- Closing the street, and where old plant lands. Cathedral Quarter streets leave a compact crane very few places to stand, so a lift there comes with a closure and a patch of road to set old plant on. We arrange the traffic management and road closure with Derby City Council or Derbyshire County Council.
Before anything is lifted
Our first day waits on other firms. The M&E contractor makes each system dead, drained and locked off, and puts that in writing. Any refrigerant is pumped down and recovered by an F-gas certified engineer. Asbestos found by the survey is cleared by a licensed contractor before our riggers go in.
We take those dates at quoting stage and plan ours behind them. A fixed shutdown or term date then shows early whether the window holds everything.
Postcodes and areas we cover
We cover every DE postcode and the districts around the city:
- Derby: city centre, the Cathedral Quarter, Darley Abbey, Mickleover, Littleover, Allestree, Chaddesden, Spondon, Sinfin, Pride Park and Alvaston
- Derbyshire: Belper, Ripley, Heanor, Ilkeston, Wirksworth and Matlock
- South: Swadlincote, Burton-on-Trent and Barton-under-Needwood
- Wider area: Ashbourne, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Uttoxeter, Loughborough, Mansfield and Nottingham
We strip out plant rooms right across the UK.
Why Derby firms choose Synergy Lifting for plant room strip out
- Business park roofs we already lift from. Rooftop plant replacement on Pride Park offices and units is a regular part of our Derby crane work.
- Hospital and university plant rooms. Our Derby crews change chillers and air handling units on these sites, working to the estates team’s hours.
- One firm from street to base. Our crane works outside and our riggers work the plant room, and the same firm hauls the old plant away and lands the new unit.
- Qualified and accredited. CPCS and NPORS operators, lifts planned to BS 7121, equipment inspected under LOLER and PUWER, SSIP approved, Constructionline Gold Member, certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and members of the Construction Plant-hire Association.
More than plant room strip out
Other Derby services that often sit beside a strip out:
How a plant room strip out works
- Send the plant list, the plant room’s floor and photographs of the route to the street.
- We survey, fix the route out and mark where each item comes apart.
- We prepare the lift plan, risk assessment and method statement, with our days booked once the isolation dates are known.
- The old plant is dismantled at those marks and taken out to the wagons.
- New plant is lowered onto its bases and levelled for connection.
Common questions
Our offices are in the Cathedral Quarter. How soon should we tell you about a roof plant change?
As soon as the dates firm up, because a street closure through Derby City Council needs notice. The survey then shows whether a crane can stand close enough. If not, the plant is taken apart on the roof and brought down inside, with no closure needed.
Our new chiller on Pride Park arrives before the old one leaves. Can both lifts happen in one visit?
Yes, where the yard holds the crane and a spot for the old unit. It comes off once its refrigerant is recovered, and the new one goes up on the same crane booking.
Can the building stay open while the plant comes out?
Usually, yes. Most of this work happens in buildings that keep running, so the route is protected, the hours are agreed with the building manager, and the heavy moves go at night or over a weekend where that suits everyone. On a heating or cooling system the building cannot lose, the new plant goes in and is proven before the old plant comes out.
Who isolates and drains the plant before you start?
Your M&E contractor, with the isolation, drain down and lock-off signed off in writing before we cut anything. Refrigerant recovery belongs to an F-gas certified engineer and asbestos to a licensed contractor, so we plan our dates around both. We agree at quoting stage who is covering what.
Get a quote for a plant room strip out in Derby
- Phone: 01332 408 863
- Email: derby@synergy-lifting.co.uk
Send a line on the plant and where it sits in the building, say whether replacement plant is going in, and attach photographs of the plant room and the way to the street.
We also provide plant room strip out in Nottingham, Chesterfield, Leicester and Stoke. See all the plant room strip out locations.