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Plant room strip out in Norwich and across Norfolk
In Norwich the work comes from clinics and labs, schools and colleges, city offices, and the boiler houses that serve Norfolk’s food and engineering sites. We take out the plant a building has finished with and get the new units into place while it stays open. The M&E contractor sets the dates and we fit in.
Our crews cover Norwich, Thorpe St Andrew, Hellesdon, Costessey, Sprowston, Wymondham, Dereham, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and King’s Lynn. Send photographs of the plant and its exit and we price from a desktop survey, usually the same day, with evenings and weekends booked where the building needs them.
What a strip out covers
Boilers and calorifiers, chillers, air handling units, pumps and tanks, generators and switchgear, and the pipework and steel around them all come under it. We split each item to whatever the doors and stairs will pass and rig it out for removal. The replacement follows that route back in, and our riggers land it level on its bases, ready for connection.
What comes out of a Norwich plant room
| Plant | Where it sits | How it comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Chillers and air-cooled condensers | Roof decks and walled service yards | Lifted whole where a crane reaches, or fans and coils first and the frame after |
| Boilers and calorifiers | Lower ground plant rooms and lean-to boiler houses | Casing stripped, shell parted, each piece jacked onto skates |
| Air handling units | Roof housings and plant floors above the offices | Unbolted module by module and taken to the goods lift |
| Pump sets, pressurisation units and cold water tanks | Tank rooms, pump rooms and the foot of the risers | Tanks dropped a plate at a time, pump sets slid onto a trolley |
| Generators, transformers and switchgear | Standby generator rooms, substations and LV switchrooms | Skated to the loading bay, switchgear parted into its sections |
| Dead pipework, flues and bracketry | Ceiling voids, wall runs and risers | Cut cold at the hangers and bundled for the skip |
We choose the method by the unit with the tightest path to the door, and that is not always 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 Norwich
Six parts of the city and county send us this work.
Offices and shops in the old city
Basement boilers and rooftop chillers come out of commercial buildings inside the city walls at refit, with tenants still working below. See our HVAC page.
Norfolk’s food processing sites
Refrigeration plant and steam boilers leave the county’s packing sites in a planned stop, routed clear of hygiene zones. See our food and beverages page.
Business parks east and north of the city
Air handling units and standby generators in offices and engineering units on the Thorpe business parks and near the airport are swapped out of hours. See our industrial page.
Clinical and laboratory buildings
Chillers and extract plant in clinical and research buildings change over in stages, so no room loses cooling or ventilation. See our healthcare and pharma page.
Schools and colleges from Wymondham to Dereham
School and college boiler houses are cleared in the holidays, with the new plant on its bases before pupils return. See our education page.
Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft
Generators and switchgear leave harbour workshops serving the offshore energy trade, planned around the quay. See our power and renewables page.
Access and planning for a Norwich plant room strip out
Settled with the building owner and M&E team before any date is set:
- Joists, cellars and slabs. Skates concentrate a unit’s weight, and older central buildings hide timber joists and cellars beneath the corridors, so we check each span and plate where it falls short.
- Street space in the old city. Central lanes are narrow, one-way or pedestrian, so crane work goes in the hours a lane can be shut. The traffic management and road closure goes through Norfolk County Council, or Suffolk County Council at Lowestoft, and we arrange it along with a lay-down spot for the old plant.
- Crane lift or internal carry. A crane is quickest and costs the machine and the closure. Carrying through the building costs labour, floor protection and lift time instead, so we price both.
- Breaking units down. Each section taken off at a flange or panel joint lightens the heaviest lift left, and that weight decides the crane, or whether one comes at all.
- People working around us. We agree hours, noise, goods lift bookings and night work with whoever runs the building and protect our corridors.
Before anything is lifted
Three jobs come ahead of ours. Every system in the room is isolated, drained and locked off by the M&E contractor, with written sign-off. Chillers and condensers are emptied of refrigerant by an F-gas certified engineer. Any asbestos found at survey stage is cleared by a licensed contractor before our crew arrives.
The quote names the firm covering each of those three, and our days on site follow theirs.
Postcodes and areas we cover
We cover every NR postcode across the county:
- Norwich: city centre, Thorpe St Andrew, Hellesdon, Costessey, Sprowston and Eaton
- South and west: Wymondham, Hethersett, Attleborough, Dereham and Watton
- Coast and east: Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Caister, Aylsham, North Walsham and Cromer
- Wider area: King’s Lynn, Thetford, Diss, Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich
We strip out plant rooms right across the UK.
Why Norwich firms choose Synergy Lifting for plant room strip out
- Hours set by the people in the building. On Norwich clinical and office sites the estates team fixes when we work, and the programme is written to their times.
- Farm and food plant is regular county work. Norfolk food and milling sites bring us cold store and boiler plant, and their hygiene rules go into the method.
- One contract for the crane, the riggers and the wagons. Our crane and riggers take the old units out, our wagons remove them, and the same crew lands the new plant on its bases.
- 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 Norwich services that tie in with a strip out:
How a plant room strip out works
- Tell us what plant is going and where it sits, with photographs from the plant room to the door.
- Surveying the building and any old-city lane outside settles the route and each split.
- Our RAMS and lift plan allow for any Norfolk County Council closure, and our days follow isolation.
- Our crew strips the plant and loads it onto our wagons.
- The new units are landed and levelled for the M&E team to connect.
Common questions
The crane would have to swing over a listed roof next door. Is that allowed?
With the neighbour’s agreement, yes. We ask early and write their fabric’s protection into the lift plan. Without it, the plant is broken down and carried out through your own building.
Our food factory can stop for one weekend. Can the boiler and chiller swap fit into it?
We plan it to fit. Preparation happens while you produce, the new plant is staged on site before the stop, and isolation and refrigerant work share the window. If one weekend is too short, we split the change across two.
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 Norwich
- Phone: 01603 385 877
- Email: norwich@synergy-lifting.co.uk
Tell us what is coming out, which floor it is on and if anything replaces it. Phone photos of the room, its corridors and any narrow Norwich lane outside will price it.
We also provide plant room strip out in Ipswich, Cambridge, Peterborough and Grimsby. See all the plant room strip out locations.