Contents
Plant room strip out in Stoke-on-Trent and across Staffordshire
Stoke plant rooms sit behind kiln halls, under hospital and university roofs, beside distribution sheds off the A50 and A500 and in schools and public buildings. Estates teams and works engineers call us to take the redundant plant out and land the new units, working to the M&E contractor’s programme.
We take jobs in Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Longton, Fenton and Stoke, north to Kidsgrove, west to Newcastle-under-Lyme, south to Trentham and Stone, and out to Leek. Send photographs of the plant and the way out and most enquiries are priced from a desktop survey the same working day, with nights and weekends if the building has to stay in use.
What a strip out covers
Heating, cooling and electrical plant is taken apart where it stands, with the dead pipework and steel around it, then rigged out and driven off site. Our crew sets the replacement on its bases, levelled, for the M&E contractor to connect and commission.
What comes out of a Stoke plant room
| Plant | Where it sits | How it comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Heating boilers and calorifiers | Works boiler houses and school basements | Burners and casings off, shell carried to the yard door in sections |
| Rooftop chillers and condensers | Shed roofs and hospital blocks | Lifted to the yard whole, or split into frame and coil blocks |
| Air handling units | Plant decks above wards, lecture rooms and offices | Unbolted panel by panel, fan sections landed on a gantry |
| Generator sets, pump skids and switchboards | Energy centres and switchrooms | Walked out on skates to a crane or trailer at the door |
| Disused heating mains and pipe racks | Ceiling voids, risers and floor ducts | Cold cut into lengths for carrying out by hand |
Weight is a poor guide to the method. The piece with the tightest squeeze between its base and the wagon decides how the room is emptied, even when it is a light one. See the 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 Stoke
Six kinds of building give us this work.
Behind the kilns in the six towns
Boilers and compressors leave pottery and tile works when a factory re-equips, fitted into the days the kilns are cold. See our industrial sector page.
Plant above wards and lecture theatres
Chillers, air handling units and calorifiers leave hospital and university buildings with patients and students still inside, on routes and hours the estates team hands us. See our healthcare and pharma page.
Sheds between the M6 and the A50
Rooftop chillers, sprinkler pumps and standby generators are replaced at distribution sites while picking carries on inside. See our construction sector page.
Firms on Festival Park and Trentham Lakes
Heating, compressed air and cooling plant in engineering and plastics units here is swapped when a firm expands or a tenant changes, over a weekend. See our plastics and metals page.
Schools and colleges in the holidays
Old boilers and ventilation plant are replaced while pupils are away, with the new units running before term starts. See our education page.
Recycling, power and water plant
Transformers, switchgear and pump sets come out of these buildings inside the outage dates the operator books. See our waste and recycling and power and renewables pages.
Access and planning for a Stoke plant room strip out
We settle these on the survey walk, from the plant room door to the wagon:
- Who is using the building while we work. Working hours, noise limits, a goods lift and corridor protection are settled with the building manager ahead of any date.
- Closing part of the road. A crane over a building and a lay-down area for the old plant both take road or pavement space. We arrange the traffic management and road closure with Stoke-on-Trent City Council, or with Staffordshire County Council for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Kidsgrove, Stone and Leek.
- What the ground and floors will bear. Much of Stoke sits on made ground, and old works floors hide ducts and pits. Skate routes and outrigger positions are checked, with steel plate or mats where needed.
- Lifted from above, or walked out at ground level. Craning from the roof costs a machine and a closure and saves labour. Carrying plant down inside uses up crew hours, lift bookings and floor protection instead.
- Breaking units down at their joints. The heaviest piece left after splitting at panels and flanges decides between a crane and a gantry.
Before anything is lifted
Before a Stoke crew touches the plant, three sign-offs are needed. Each system is made dead by your M&E contractor: isolated, drained down, locked off and signed off in writing. Chillers are emptied of refrigerant by an F-gas certified engineer. The asbestos survey is in place, and any licensed removal is finished before our crew enters the room.
Our programme starts from those dates, and the quote names who covers each. We ask to see the certificates themselves, and the crane is booked once they are in hand.
Postcodes and areas we cover
We take on strip outs in every ST postcode and the districts around the city:
- Stoke-on-Trent: Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Longton, Fenton, Stoke, Trentham and Etruria
- West and south: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stone, Eccleshall and Stafford
- North and east: Kidsgrove, Biddulph, Leek, Cheadle and the Staffordshire Moorlands
- Wider area: Crewe, Congleton, Macclesfield, Uttoxeter, Derby and Telford
We strip out plant rooms right across the UK.
Why Stoke firms choose Synergy Lifting for plant room strip out
- Works shutdowns planned from the restart date. The strip out and the new plant are programmed back from the day a pottery or engineering works starts producing again.
- Estates teams set the hours. Hospital, university and school buildings stay in use, and our crews keep to the estates team’s times and routes.
- Removal and replacement by one firm. Our crane, riggers and wagons take the old plant away, and the same crew sets 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
Other services we run in Stoke:
How a plant room strip out works
- Tell us what the plant is and where it sits, with photographs of the way out.
- The survey fixes the route to the wagon and where each unit splits.
- Paperwork comes next: risk assessment, lift plan and method statement, with our dates after the M&E contractor’s isolations.
- Our crew breaks the old plant down and wagons it away.
- New units go down on their bases, and the M&E contractor’s fitters connect them.
Common questions
Can a crane working from our A500 service yard reach the rooftop chillers?
The survey tells us, starting with what the yard will carry. Old mine workings and tipped ground are common here, so bearing pressures are checked before the lift is booked. Where the yard falls short, mats spread the load, or the chillers are split on the roof and lowered in lighter pieces.
Our works has a shutdown booked for kiln repairs. Can the boiler house be cleared in the same window?
Yes, provided the isolations and drain down land at the start of it. Send us the dates and we plan backwards from the restart, with the old boilers out and the new ones on their bases before firing resumes.
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 Stoke
- Phone: 01782 841 268
- Email: stoke@synergy-lifting.co.uk
Send a note of the plant and where it sits, whether replacement units are going in, and photographs of the plant room and the way out.
We also provide plant room strip out in Stockport, Wolverhampton, Derby and Warrington. See all the plant room strip out locations.