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Plant room strip out in Southampton and across Hampshire
Most Southampton jobs start with a delivery date. The new plant is ordered, and someone has to get the old units out of a room built around them. The work comes from health buildings, teaching blocks, offices in the centre and on the waterfront, and the site utilities on the Waterside industrial sites. Our riggers part the old units and haul them off, and set the new ones in place, whichever side of the water the building sits.
Work comes in from Southampton and Millbrook, from Nursling and Totton, from Marchwood and Hythe, and out to Eastleigh, Romsey and Winchester. A plant list and photos are enough for a desktop survey, and the quote follows the same working day. If the building stays in service, we work nights, weekends or a shutdown.
What a strip out covers
In a typical room that means pumps and tanks, pressurisation sets, boilers, calorifiers, switchgear, transformers, generators, air handling units, chillers and condensers. We cut it down to what the building’s own route will take and load it out with the dead pipework and steel. The new plant comes in the same way. The programme is the M&E contractor’s, and so are the pipework, wiring and commissioning.
What comes out of a Southampton plant room
| Plant | Where it sits | How it comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Air handling plant | Roof housings and high plant decks | Unbolted to fan, coil and filter sections |
| Hot water boilers and calorifiers | Basement boiler houses | Flue and burner off, then the shell broken into its sections |
| Chillers and condensers | Roofs and fenced yard compounds | Slung off whole where a crane reaches, or cut to modules |
| Tanks, pumps and pressurisation sets | Tank rooms and risers | Bolts out, rollered to the loading point |
| Standby sets, switchgear and transformers | Standby rooms and switchrooms | Winched onto skates under a low gantry |
| Old pipework and support steel | Wall runs, risers and ceiling voids | Cold cut to carryable lengths |
A light unit behind a narrow door can shape the whole method. See the plant room strip out service page.
Contact us
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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 Southampton
It comes from across the city and the Waterside, mostly from these.
Waterfront and city-centre offices
Roof chillers and basement boilers leave the blocks by the water and the offices behind them, tenants at work between. See our HVAC sector page.
Clinics and health centres
Nothing here can lose its heating or cooling mid-programme, so the incoming units are running and proven while the redundant ones still stand. See our healthcare and pharma page.
Teaching and campus buildings
Plant on the education estate changes in a vacation, which fixes the end date before the first bolt turns. See our education sector page.
Units at Nursling, Millbrook and Totton
Compressor rooms, boiler houses and rooftop units on the estates ringing the city change in a planned stop. See our industrial sector page.
Switchrooms and standby plant
Generators, UPS and close control cooling change inside a window the facilities team fixes months ahead. See our data centre infrastructure page.
Energy centres on the Waterside
Boiler plant and site utilities here take production down with them, so a changeover goes inside a booked outage on the site’s permits. See our chemicals sector page.
Access and planning for a Southampton plant room strip out
Five things get settled before a Southampton job takes a date:
- The split points on each unit. Casing panels and flanges say where a unit divides, and the weight of the biggest piece left tells us if a crane earns its road space in the city.
- Ground near the water. Much of it is made up, and plant on skates puts its whole weight through a few small pads, so floors and crane standings get checked.
- Closures and the A326. A lift over a building takes a carriageway or bay, and ground for the old unit. The traffic management and road closure go in with Southampton City Council, or Hampshire County Council outside the city boundary. On the Waterside everything on wheels comes round the head of the water on the A326, and the day is planned around that.
- Crane over the roof or carry through. A crane costs its hire and a closure but gives days back. Carrying through the building costs labour, protection and lift time.
- The building manager’s say. We agree hours, noise, lift bookings and protected routes with them first.
Before anything is lifted
Other trades go first. On a Southampton job the M&E contractor cuts the supplies, drains the system down and locks it off, then confirms that in writing. Any refrigerant is recovered by an F-gas certified engineer. If the pre-works asbestos survey finds anything, a licensed contractor clears the space before we go in.
When we quote, we ask when each will be done. The crane, crew and any road closure are booked after the last, and we confirm once all three dates are firm.
Postcodes and areas we cover
We cover every SO postcode and the Hampshire districts around the city:
- Southampton: city centre, the docks, Millbrook, Shirley, Freemantle, Bassett, Highfield, Swaythling, Bitterne and Woolston
- The Waterside: Totton, Marchwood, Hythe and Fawley
- Around the city: Nursling, Eastleigh, Chandler’s Ford, Hedge End, Romsey and Winchester
- Wider area: Fareham, Portsmouth, Andover, Stockbridge, Salisbury, Bournemouth and Basingstoke
We strip out plant rooms right across the UK.
Why Southampton firms choose Synergy Lifting for plant room strip out
- Working round a building in use. Across Hampshire the plant room empties while the floors above stay let and staffed, on a plan the site team shaped.
- Fixed windows. A vacation, a weekend possession or a booked outage has an end date that will not move, and we say at survey if it is short.
- Crane and rigging together. We provide the crane and operator as well as the riggers inside, take the old plant away on our wagons and set the new unit down.
- 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
Services that come into a Southampton strip out:
How a plant room strip out works
- Tell us what is being replaced and where the plant room is.
- A survey covers the way out, the split points and the drive in over the Itchen or round the Test, and the price comes from that.
- RAMS and the lift plan are issued. Nothing is booked until the isolation dates are in.
- The plant is broken down and carried out over boarded floors to the wagons.
- Replacement units, brought in by the same crossing, are set level on their plinths and passed to the M&E contractor for connection.
Common questions
Our plant room is on the Waterside. Does the drive round the head of the water change anything?
It changes the day rather than the method. Crane, crew and wagons run north on the A326 to Totton and the M27, so movements are grouped.
Our plant room is in Woolston. Does the Itchen crossing affect the plan?
Mainly the vehicle route. Each crossing over the Itchen carries its own restrictions, so the approach for the crane and the wagons is settled at survey.
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 Southampton
- Phone: 023 8168 4568
- Email: southampton@synergy-lifting.co.uk
Give us a list of what is coming out and where it is. Tell us if replacements follow, and send photos if you have them.
We also provide plant room strip out in Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Reading and Brighton. See all the plant room strip out locations.