Contents
Industrial plant dismantling in Plymouth and across south west Devon
We dismantle industrial plant in Plymouth for engineering and manufacturing firms on the city’s estates, for building supply operations, for construction contractors, and for hospital, university and college estates teams. One job is a whole factory floor; the next is a single redundant batching plant. A survey sets the method, and the job then runs through isolation, cutting in planned order, lowering, segregation and load-out.
We cover Plymouth, Plympton, Plymstock, Estover and Ivybridge, out to Yelverton, Tavistock and Liskeard, with Saltash and Torpoint across the water. Photographs or drawings are enough for a desktop survey, with the quote back the same working day. Night and shutdown work is taken where needed.
What dismantling covers
Taking a plant down in reverse of how it went up keeps it worth something. Equipment bound for another site is match-marked and recorded before a connection is broken, then packed for the road. Machines with life left in them sell on as they stand. What remains is separated on the way down and cut to sizes that weigh and sell.
What we dismantle in Plymouth
| Plant | What decides the method | How it comes apart |
|---|---|---|
| Overhead cranes and runway steel | Whether the floor below keeps working | Crab and bridge down, then the runway |
| Process vessels, tanks and silos | What holds the shell round once open | Props in, then rings cut from the top |
| Boiler plant and air handling units | The narrowest point on the route out | Drained, parted at flanges, carried out in pieces |
| Pipework, ductwork and support steel | What else the same hangers carry | A run at a time, held as brackets come off |
| Production lines, skids and conveyors | Where the line is going next | Uncoupled at bolts, numbered, wrapped and crated |
| Batching plants, hoppers and feeds | The order the frame went up | Stayed off, then dropped from the head down |
Our industrial plant dismantling service page goes behind each row.
Contact us
Get In Touch
Please leave a few details and a member of our dismantling team will be in touch to discuss your requirements in more detail.
Where we work in and around Plymouth
Six parts of the city and its edges send us this work.
Faraday Mill and the bays near the centre
Engineering and building supply firms hold bays fitted out decades apart, and overhead cranes, compressors and extraction plant come out as one changes hands. See our industrial sector page.
Burrington and Estover
North of the city, manufacturing units release presses, machine bases and the services that fed them.
Eurotech Park, Lee Mill and the A38 corridor
Off the A386 and east beyond Plympton, production lines are replaced, and the outgoing line leaves in numbered sections.
Hospital, university and college estates
Boiler plant, chillers and standby sets leave plant rooms during refurbishment, inside whatever closure week the site can give. See our healthcare and pharma and education pages.
Roofs and plant rooms in the city centre
Offices, shops and hotels take out worn chillers and air handling units, cut to pieces a stair will pass. See our HVAC sector page.
Schemes finishing in the city and over the Tamar
Batching plants, silos and site steel come down as a scheme completes, here and out at Saltash. See our construction sector page.
Access and planning for dismantling in Plymouth
Points we settle before any cutting starts in Plymouth:
- Contents, and who signs them off. Emptying, purging and gas-free certification are arranged by the site operator or a specialist, and cutting is timed to the shift each certificate covers.
- The rivers on either side of the city. A section leaving over the Tamar goes by the bridge or the ferry, each with its own limits, while a load off an estate east of the Plym takes different roads. Crossing and section size are decided together.
- Height, access and getting a casualty down. Little of this happens at floor level. The lift plan fixes the platforms, the edge protection, what holds a member while it is cut, and how anyone hurt up there is reached.
- What is still carrying load. A frame that looks independent turns out to brace the next one along, so removal is worked stage by stage, with temporary steel where a check shows a gap.
- Crane standing, ground bearing and the way out. Yards here run from old hardstanding over buried services to platforms made up against a slope, so outrigger loads and mat sizes are fixed first. Road closures go through Plymouth City Council, or Cornwall Council over the river.
Dismantling for reuse, or for recovery
Plant with somewhere else to go is identified while the method is still being drawn. Each item is match-marked and its position recorded before anything is disturbed, joints come apart at the flange and the bolt wherever the torch can be kept off, and parts are crated for the lorry. A machine sold on as a runner gets the same care.
On plant with nothing left to give, the money comes out of separation. Stainless is kept away from carbon steel, cable and non-ferrous fill containers of their own, and steel is cut to lengths that load and weigh cleanly. A unit handed back on a city estate holds both kinds. Name the items you want back on the enquiry, and the sequence starts at the top of that list.
Postcodes and areas we cover
We cover every PL postcode and the districts around the city:
- Plymouth: city centre, Stonehouse, Mutley, Greenbank, St Budeaux and Ernesettle
- Estates and outer districts: Faraday Mill, Burrington, Estover, Plympton, Plymstock and Turnchapel
- North and east: Ivybridge, Lee Mill, Yelverton, Tavistock and Okehampton
- Cornwall and the South Hams: Saltash, Torpoint, Liskeard, Bodmin, Totnes and Kingsbridge
We dismantle plant right across the UK and into Europe.
Why Plymouth firms choose Synergy Lifting for dismantling
- Plant off the city’s industrial estates. Units at Faraday Mill, Burrington, Eurotech Park and Lee Mill were fitted out decades apart, and each bay gets its own way out.
- Dates set by the estates team. Plant room and roof work on campus and hospital sites goes into a closure week or night hours, and the cutting order finishes inside it.
- Every stage booked through one office. The lift plan and appointed person, the cutting and rigging crews, the crane and wagons all come from us.
- 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 dismantling
Other services in a Plymouth dismantling job:
How a dismantling job works
- Give us the plant, what it held and which of it is being kept, with photographs.
- We survey, then set the cutting order so what is left standing stays stable.
- Method statement, risk assessment and lift plan follow, with the site’s certificates written into the programme.
- Cutting, lifting down and segregation run in that order, kept items released first.
- Loads leave site, anything being re-erected with its records and marking.
Common questions
Our unit is at Lee Mill and some sections will be oversized. How do they leave?
Size is decided at survey against the gate, the yard and the road the wagon takes, so pieces travel as a normal load. Oversized ones get their route and notice before a date is fixed.
The extraction and air lines in our Faraday Mill bay feed the unit next door. What then?
Shared runs are traced at survey and an isolation point agreed with both occupiers. Where the neighbour needs a service kept live, a cap goes in before the cut is made beyond it.
How is dismantling different from demolition?
Demolition takes a structure down and the value is in the cleared site. Dismantling takes plant apart in the reverse of the order it went up, so what comes off keeps its value as equipment, as parts, or as material worth more separated than mixed. The planning takes longer and the work is slower, and on the right job it pays for itself.
Who cleans and certifies the plant before cutting?
Cleaning, purging and gas-free certification sit with the site operator or a specialist, and the sequence is planned around those certificates. Several are valid for one shift only, so the cutting is arranged to match when they can be issued. We agree all of that at survey and write it into the programme.
Get a quote for industrial plant dismantling in Plymouth
- Phone: 01752 712 008
- Email: plymouth@synergy-lifting.co.uk
List the plant, its contents and the items you want back, and add photographs or drawings of the area.
We also provide industrial plant dismantling in Exeter, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport. See all the industrial plant dismantling locations.