COVER STORY
How offsite solutions can help combat challenging market conditions
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As the ailing UK economy influences changes in the construction industry, Polypipe Building Services UK managing director Andy Cullum explains how the company is adapting its drainage products to meet a growing demand for offsite solutions from contractors looking for faster project turnaround times, cost certainty and answers to a shrinking base of skilled labour.
he method of delivering commercial construction projects has largely remained the same since the 1960s, and while other sectors have seen nearly three times the growth in offsite manufacturing the construction industry has been slow to capitalise on this more manufacturing-based process. Until now. A quick scan of the news feeds for construction within the UK reveals that those companies successfully landing some of the biggest deals are those specialising in modern construction techniques from bathroom pods to steel framing.
While offsite manufacturing has been a specialist service supplied by manufacturers for some time because it solves design issues and allows products to undergo robust testing before getting to site, now with vacancies at almost double pre-pandemic levels designers and contractors are increasingly turning to offsite and modular components to ease their on-site labour requirements. We have invested heavily in infrastructure at our manufacturing facility in Kent and have the technical capabilities to fully fabricate our Terrain drainage stacks and MecFlow water supply risers and runouts, which are manufactured from high density polyethylene (HDPE), PP or PVS to individual project specifications needed on site. This fabrication process, which we call Polypipe Advantage, allows contractors to make fast progress with less waste through a made to measure drainage or water supply system that is efficiently installed. Our Advantage team design engineers can create systems which are designed to meet the exact specifications of a project, removing the need for specialist teams to be present on site to undertake significant work to install them. We also ensure each stack is fully air tested before being delivered to site. Offsite fabrication has always been an important focus for Polypipe Building Services. Now, with greater pressure to deliver more sustainable solutions we are seeing changes coming through from architects and designers and onto subcontractors – meaning we have seen a doubling in demand since 2020 for our
Advantage service and we are sure this will be one of the fastest growing areas for us in the next couple of years. We create off-site fabricated products for installation in projects such as healthcare, education, multi occupancy residential, commercial high and mid-rise, student apartments and hotels. The benefits in terms of efficiency, quality assurance and health and safety mean there’s really no limit to it, and it’s why we have recruited more engineers and increased our fabrication facilities so we can expand within this sector.
This has led us to further develop our product range in tandem, and we have just launched Terrain FUZE Stax as the perfect solution to sit between the current options of ordering loose Terrain FUZE components or using our Advantage service for more unique, complex projects. Soon to be available from stockists, this range covers installing the most common low to high-rise applications – kitchens, utilities, and bathrooms – with a broad range of options including different top and bottom sections, stack diameters, vents and more to give installers maximum flexibility to meet the changing demands on site. Data gathered by our Advantage team
revealed many large-scale drainage projects involve repeating similar configurations of loose components across floors meaning large amounts of time spent on the same sizing, cutting, and welding jobs. By producing prefabricated stacks for contractors which reflect their most common configurations, we can help improve site safety, reduce project installation time, construction costs and waste generated by offcuts. Improving our carbon footprint and playing our part in helping the supply chain to build better is important to us as a manufacturer because as part of the wider Genuit group we’re aiming for 62% of our products to be manufactured with recyclable materials by 2025. Our own manufacturing site already operates with a zero-waste policy, and this means we not only recycle and reuse pallets and plastic packaging for example, but we also pick up any product offcuts from customers generated on projects which are brought back and reprocessed.
Because all our products are 100% recyclable, at the end of a buildings’ life – however long that may be – during the deconstruction phase the plastic drainage can also be recovered and reprocessed or recycled and used to manufacture further products. Faster and safer installation, a more consistently quality product, efficient and predictable costings, and use of materials make it easy to see why modular and offsite construction will only continue to grow within UK construction and become the norm. For more information about the Polypipe Advantage Service go to
www.polypipe.com/ polypipeadvantage
Read the latest at:
www.bsee.co.uk BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER FEBRUARY 2023 11
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