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Plant room strip out in Leicester and across Leicestershire
Leicester plant room work comes from hospital and university estates, schools and colleges, central offices and student blocks, and the boiler and compressor houses of food and engineering sites. Wards, lecture rooms and trading floors stay in use while the old plant comes out and the new units go in. The M&E contractor sets the programme, and we work to it alongside their fitters.
We work in Leicester, Oadby, Wigston, Enderby, Syston and Braunstone, and out to Loughborough, Lutterworth, Hinckley and Market Harborough. Pictures of the plant and its loading bay or kerb are enough for a desktop survey and a same-day price, with nights and weekends where a site needs them.
What a strip out covers
Anything in the table below can come out, with the pipework and steel that served it. Each item is broken down to what the building will pass, rigged out and cleared from site. The replacement comes back along that route, and we set it level on its bases for connection.
What comes out of a Leicester plant room
| Plant | Where it sits | How it comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Dry air coolers and chillers | Flat roofs, podium decks and fenced yard enclosures | One pick where a crane stands close, or fans and compressors lowered separately |
| Boilers and calorifiers | Below-ground and ground floor boiler rooms | Casing off, heat exchanger parted into stair-sized sections |
| Air handling units | Roof plant decks and upper floor plant rooms | Split into fan, coil and filter modules and wheeled out |
| Tanks, pumps and pressurisation units | Pump rooms, tank rooms and riser spaces | Tanks unbolted by panel, pumps lifted off on a chain block |
| Standby generators, transformers and switchgear | Generator houses, switchrooms and outdoor enclosures | On rollers to the loading bay, switchgear one cabinet at a time |
| Old pipework, flues and support steel | Along walls, overhead and up the risers | Cold cut into lengths two people can carry |
The item that decides the method is often a light one with a bad route out, not the heaviest. See our plant room strip out service page.
Contact us
Get In Touch
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 Leicester
Leicester plant room work reaches from the motorway sheds to the city’s hospital wards.
Magna Park, Hinckley and the M1 sheds
Switchgear, standby generators and sprinkler pumps come out of back rooms and compounds at the big distribution buildings, in gaps the shift pattern leaves. See our industrial sector page.
Leicestershire food factories
Refrigeration compressors, cold store condensers and boiler plant leave Leicestershire food factories in a planned stop, with hygiene areas kept off the route. See our food and beverages page.
The Cultural Quarter and the city-centre student blocks
Rooftop chillers and air handling units, and the boilers in basements below, come out as offices, shops and student housing age. See our HVAC page.
University teaching and laboratory buildings
Boiler and laboratory air handling plant on the city’s campuses is changed between terms, with teaching rooms beside the route empty. See our education page.
The hospital estate
Plant serving the wards leaves only once the new units carry the load, in hours the estates staff give us. See our healthcare and pharma page.
Beaumont Leys and Hamilton
Boiler and compressor plant feeding engineering and textile units on these estates comes out in a shutdown the occupier picks.
Access and planning for a Leicester plant room strip out
Agreed with the building owner and the M&E contractor before we give a date:
- Keeping wards and lecture rooms open. We fix with the building manager when we can work, how loud, which lift we use and how the floors are protected, and add out-of-hours shifts where needed.
- Kerb space for the crane and the wagons. Central streets by the Cultural Quarter are tight and some are pedestrianised, so crane days start early or fall on a Sunday. The traffic management and road closure is ours to arrange, through Leicester City Council or, beyond the city, Leicestershire County Council.
- Where the joints are. Plant separates at panel and flange joints, and where they fall sets the heaviest remaining piece, which settles whether a crane is worth a tight Cultural Quarter kerb.
- Crane outside, or crew inside. A roof lift costs a hire and a closure and saves days of labour. Carrying through the building costs little in plant and a lot in crew hours and lift time.
- Load on the slab under the skates. Skates put a unit’s weight through a few small points, so in older textile buildings and on made ground along the Soar the route is checked and plated where needed.
Before anything is lifted
Our crew starts once the other trades’ paperwork is in. Isolating, draining and locking off is your M&E contractor’s job, and we need it confirmed in writing first. An F-gas certified engineer takes any refrigerant out. A licensed contractor removes any asbestos the survey found and certifies the area.
Each goes into our programme as a named date with the firm responsible beside it.
Postcodes and areas we cover
We cover every LE postcode and the Leicestershire districts around it:
- Leicester: city centre, the Cultural Quarter, Clarendon Park, Aylestone, Evington, Beaumont Leys and Braunstone
- Around the city: Hamilton, Glenfield, Wigston, Oadby, Enderby, Groby, Anstey and Syston
- The county: Loughborough, Melton Mowbray, Lutterworth, Market Harborough, Coalville and Ashby-de-la-Zouch
- Wider area: Hinckley, Nuneaton, Coventry and Corby
We strip out plant rooms right across the UK.
Why Leicester firms choose Synergy Lifting for plant room strip out
- Hospital and campus plant rooms are regular work. Changes on Leicester estates that stay open are planned with the estates team around wards and teaching.
- Factories and sheds as well as offices. Plant rooms behind food lines and in distribution buildings come out around shutdowns and shift changes.
- Our crews inside and out. The crane outside, the rigging in the plant room, the old plant taken away and the new plant landed all sit on one order.
- 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
A Leicester strip out often brings in one of these:
How a plant room strip out works
- Pass on the plant details, its floor or roof and photographs of the way out.
- A survey fixes which way each item leaves, clear of wards and hygiene areas, and where it splits.
- We draw up a method statement, a lift plan and the risk assessment, then set our dates once the M&E contractor confirms the isolations.
- Our riggers take the plant apart, bring it out and put it on our transport.
- The replacement is landed and levelled, and your M&E contractor makes the connections.
Common questions
Our student block is on a Cultural Quarter street. When would the crane come in?
Early morning, evening or Sunday, when the street is quiet enough to close. We book the closure with Leicester City Council, and roof photographs tell us where the crane can stand.
Our warehouse is at Magna Park. Can the switchgear change happen outside trading hours?
Yes. The removal is timed to the outage your electrical contractor books, and where the switchroom has space, the new switchgear waits beside the old so the swap fits one window.
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 Leicester
- Phone: 0116 350 1020
- Email: leicester@synergy-lifting.co.uk
Email or ring about the plant, where it is in the building and if anything new goes in. A photo of the room and its exit, a Magna Park shutter or a student block roof, lets us price it.
We also provide plant room strip out in Nottingham, Coventry, Derby and Northampton. See all the plant room strip out locations.