Plant Room Strip Out Cambridge

Plant room strip out in Cambridge and across Cambridgeshire

A laboratory runs more cooling and air handling than an office of the same size, and Cambridge has plenty. Calls come from research firms on the science parks, hospital estates, colleges and schools, office landlords, and Fen processing sites with their own boiler houses. Old plant comes out around labs that cannot stop, and replacements go in on dates the M&E contractor gives us.

Our crews cover Cambridge, Trumpington, Cherry Hinton, Milton and Histon, out to Ely, St Ives, Huntingdon, Newmarket and Saffron Walden. Photographs and a plant list give us a desktop survey and a price the same working day. Evenings, weekends and shutdowns are booked where needed.

What a strip out covers

Mostly chillers, condensers and AHUs, and boilers and calorifiers, then pumps and pressurisation sets, tanks, switchgear, transformers and standby generators, plus the dead pipework and steel between them. Each item is broken down to suit its way out. New plant comes in along the same route and goes down level for connection.

What comes out of a Cambridge plant room

Plant	Where it sits	How it comes out
Air handling and extract units	Roof decks and top-floor plant rooms	Parted at the casing joints, lowered module by module
Boiler plant and hot water calorifiers	Cellar plant rooms and ground floor boiler houses	Burners off, sections parted, drawn up the stair on a gantry
Chillers and heat rejection units	Flat roofs over laboratories and offices	Lifted over the parapet, or broken down and carried inside
Pumps, pressurisation sets and buffer tanks	Basement rooms and service risers	Jacked onto skates, walked out through the door
Standby generators and switchboards	Ground floor enclosures and switchrooms	Low-headroom gantry out to the tail lift
Pipework, flues and support steel	Ceiling voids, risers and roof runs	Cut cold into pieces two operatives can handle

Our method starts from the item with the trickiest trip to the street, which is seldom the heaviest in the room. See our plant room strip out service page.

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 Cambridge

The city’s plant rooms range from basements in the old centre to laboratory roofs on the parks.

Research buildings on the science parks

Chillers, AHUs and standby generators come out of laboratory buildings on the parks north and south of the city when a floor is refitted for a new occupier. See our data centre infrastructure page.

Listed streets and college courts

Boilers, calorifiers and ventilation plant come up from basements under the listed centre in the vacations, with the fabric protected and the route agreed with the building’s estates staff first. See our education page.

Offices around the station and on the business parks

Rooftop chillers and basement switchgear leave let office buildings while tenants stay at their desks. Newer mixed use blocks to the north west have room for a crane alongside. See our HVAC page.

Wards and clinics across the county

Boilers, chillers and air handling plant in hospital and health centre buildings are replaced with patients and staff inside, on hours and routes the estates team fixes. See our healthcare and pharma page.

Boiler houses behind the Fen processing sites

Grain and vegetable processors around Ely and Soham run hot water, refrigeration and compressed air from their own energy centres. The line stops when that plant room does, so the work goes into a planned shutdown. See our food and beverages page.

Access and planning for a Cambridge plant room strip out

We check these at survey.

Panel joints and flanges. Taking a unit apart at those joints sets the weight of its heaviest piece, and that weight decides whether a crane is booked.
Suspended floors and old cellars. Laboratory floors span service voids, and much of the centre stands over cellars. A unit on skates bears down on a small patch of slab, so each floor on the route is checked and plated to suit.
Roof or stairwell. A crane off the roof costs a closure and saves labour. Carrying plant down through the building drops the crane and adds labour, floor protection and time. The survey prices both.
Research and clinical neighbours. Hours, noise, a booked goods lift and a protected route are agreed with the building manager. Instruments beside the route react to shock, so heavy moves go in hours the users choose.
The street outside. Cycle traffic fills the narrow central streets, and a crane there takes road space plus a lay-down area, under a traffic management and road closure that we apply for through Cambridgeshire County Council.

Before anything is lifted

Before our crew cuts anything, the M&E contractor must have the plant isolated, drained and locked off, and must tell us so in writing. Refrigerant is the job of an F-gas certified engineer. If the asbestos survey done before refurbishment finds anything, a licensed contractor removes it.

The quote sets out who is covering each of those, and our dates follow them. On a laboratory building, the users of the rooms next door also shape our hours.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every CB postcode and the districts around the city:

Cambridge: city centre, Chesterton, Arbury, Romsey, Newnham, Cherry Hinton and Trumpington
Around the city: Milton, Histon, Waterbeach, Cottenham, Great Shelford, Sawston, Great Abington and Linton
North and east: Ely, Soham, Newmarket and Haverhill
Wider area: St Ives, Huntingdon, St Neots, Royston, Saffron Walden and Bury St Edmunds

We strip out plant rooms right across the UK.

Why Cambridge firms choose Synergy Lifting for plant room strip out

Occupied research and clinical buildings. Our crews work beside laboratories and wards that stay open, on hours their users set.
Planned from the M&E contractor’s calendar. Our start follows their isolations and the new plant’s delivery date.
The street, the plant room and the new bases with one firm. The crane outside, the riggers inside, the lorries and the crew setting the new units down all work for 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 plant room strip out

Other work that joins a Cambridge strip out:

How a plant room strip out works

List the plant and photograph the room and the stairs, doors or lift it leaves by, labs included.
We survey and decide which way each item leaves and where it splits.
Next the paperwork: lift plan, method statement, risk assessment. We start after the isolations.
We strip the old plant and carry it to the loading point.
The replacement is seated level, then the M&E contractor ties it into the lab or office.

Common questions

Our chillers are on a science park roof. Does the lift need a road closure?

Not always. Science parks have private roads and car parks, and a standing there, agreed with the landlord, keeps the crane off the public highway. Where the reach needs more, we arrange a closure with Cambridgeshire County Council.

Our laboratory’s air handling units sit on the top floor, above a small goods lift. How do they come out?

Over the parapet by crane where there is somewhere to stand, split into modules at the casing and lowered one at a time. Otherwise they go down the stairs in pieces, cut in hours the lab users choose.

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 Cambridge

Phone: 01223 790 068
Email: cambridge@synergy-lifting.co.uk

A plant list, the room’s position and whether new plant follows are enough to start. Add photos of the room and route out, noting any labs it passes.

We also provide plant room strip out in Peterborough, Luton, Milton Keynes and Northampton. See all the plant room strip out locations.