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Plant room strip out in Brighton and across Sussex
Hospital and school estates teams get to the same point as landlords with let offices in Brighton and Hove, and firms with an energy centre on one of the industrial estates. New boilers, chillers or air handling units have a delivery date, and the old ones stand in a room built around them. Our crew brings the old plant out while the building trades on, walks it to a wagon on a one-vehicle street, and sets the replacements in when the M&E contractor is ready.
We cover Brighton, Hove, Portslade, Shoreham-by-Sea, Lewes and Worthing, out to Burgess Hill, Crawley and Eastbourne. Photographs with a plant schedule get a desk survey and price that working day, terrace or estate unit. With steep streets and listed frontages, where the crane stands gets settled first.
What a strip out covers
We take out boilers and hot water plant, chillers and condensers, air handling units, pump sets, pressurisation units, tanks, switchgear, transformers and generators, and the dead pipework and steel around them. Each item is cut down until it fits its route, then rigged out and loaded. The replacement comes in by the same door or area steps and is set level, ready to connect.
What comes out of a Brighton plant room
| Plant | Where it sits | How it comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Calorifiers, boilers and flues | Below-ground rooms in the older centre | Opened cold at the seams, winched up to pavement level |
| Chillers and condensing sets | Flat roofs and rear yards | Coils and fans off first, frame picked from a suspended bay |
| Air handling units | Top floor rooms and roof decks | Split at the panel joints, module by module through the door |
| Pumps, tanks and pressurisation units | Basements and riser cupboards | Freed on toe jacks, rolled out on a boarded route |
| Switchgear, transformers and generators | Switchrooms and yard enclosures | Raised on a low-headroom gantry, out through one doorway |
On a Brighton job the awkward piece is usually the one with the longest, tightest walk to the wagon, whatever it weighs. The stages are set out on our plant room strip out service page.
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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 Brighton
Buildings run from listed terraces to units on the estates.
Behind the Regency and Victorian frontages
Boilers, calorifiers and switchgear come up from below-ground rooms in the terraces of the centre and Hove, where the only way in is the front, so pieces are sized to the door or area steps. See our construction page.
Hotels and venues along the front
Worn chillers, kitchen extract and laundry plant leave the seafront hotels and venues in the quieter months, with heavy moves overnight. See our HVAC page.
The hospital and health centre estate
Heating plant, air handling units and standby sets leave buildings still treating patients, cut down to what the corridor and lift car will take. See our healthcare and pharma page.
Teaching buildings on the edge of the city
Laboratory services, ventilation plant and boiler house equipment leave university and college buildings inside a vacation, the sequence running back from the day they reopen. See our education page.
Energy centres at Portslade, Hollingbury and Shoreham Harbour
Boiler houses, compressor rooms and process cooling serving the engineering and trade units go dead for the change, so the work fills a shutdown. See our industrial page.
Access and planning for a Brighton plant room strip out
At survey we go through five things.
- People still using the building. The hours, the noise ceiling, the route we sheet and the lift we take out of service are settled with the building manager.
- Split points. Plant comes apart at panel joints, flanges and boiler sections. The heaviest piece left after that decides between a crane, a gantry and chain blocks.
- Kerb space and somewhere to lay down. Central streets take one vehicle and The Lanes take none, so a suspended bay beside the door goes in the plan. The traffic management and road closure go through Brighton and Hove City Council, or East or West Sussex County Council outside it.
- Over the roof or out through the building. A crane clears roof plant in a shift and costs a standing position, a closure and a weather contingency. Inside, the same units cost floor protection, labour and days. Here the gradient usually decides, because a slope cuts what the machine can pick at radius.
- Floor loading. Terrace ground floors span cellars and made ground near the front moves under an outrigger. A unit on skates sits on very little, so we walk the route and prove it.
Before anything is lifted
Our crew only starts on plant that is dead and empty. Across Brighton and Hove your M&E contractor shuts its valves and breakers, drains and locks it, and gives us that on paper first. Any refrigerant charge is taken off and certified by an F-gas certified engineer. Asbestos is picked up by the pre-refurbishment survey and cleared by a licensed contractor.
The quote names who covers each of those. They tend to land on different days, and we start once the last one is in.
Postcodes and areas we cover
We cover every BN postcode and the Sussex districts around it:
- Brighton and Hove: city centre, The Lanes, Kemptown, Preston Park, Hollingbury, Hove and Portslade
- Along the coast: Shoreham-by-Sea, Lancing, Worthing and Newhaven
- Inland: Lewes, Hassocks, Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath
- Wider area: Crawley, Horsham, Eastbourne and Gatwick
We strip out plant rooms right across the UK.
Why Brighton firms choose Synergy Lifting for plant room strip out
- One survey covers both directions. The way out for the old plant and the way in for the new are settled on one visit.
- The same crews go out across Sussex. A plant room at Burgess Hill, Newhaven or Crawley gets the same people and kit as one in the centre.
- No hired-in crane. We supply the operator, riggers and wagons ourselves, from lifting the old units out to landing the new.
- 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 work we take on in the city:
How a plant room strip out works
- Tell us what is coming out, what is going in and which level the plant room sits on, with photographs of the stairs, area steps and pavement outside.
- At survey we agree the route and where each unit splits, which tells us the heaviest lift.
- The lift plan and RAMS allow for the gradient, and our dates follow the booked isolations.
- We strip the old plant, rig it along that route and load it away.
- New units go down square and level, and your M&E contractor takes over from there.
Common questions
Can a college plant room be stripped out inside a vacation?
That is how the work is booked here. The programme runs back from the day the building reopens, with the isolations, the removal and the new plant’s delivery each dated inside it.
Our building is on a steep street. Does that rule out a crane?
Not on its own. The survey measures the fall and the width, then matches a crane to the one position that works. Where nothing fits, the units come down inside.
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 Brighton
- Phone: 01273 920 125
- Email: brighton@synergy-lifting.co.uk
Tell us what the plant is and which floor holds it, say if new units follow, and add a few photos of the room and the Brighton street it would be lifted from.
We also provide plant room strip out in Portsmouth, London, Southampton and Reading. See all the plant room strip out locations.