Hospital internal drainage clean and survey
Project challenge
Lanes Group plc was commissioned to CCTV survey and clean the internal drain system in the Pink Zone Building at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI) Forester Hill Campus, as part of a £38m refit commissioned by NHS Grampian.
Modern health standards and the extra productivity delivered by the refurbished hospital building made it important to ensure the drainage system was in
optimal condition.
A key challenge was to schedule the work around the access needs of other contractors. Also, to work in what continued to be a live hospital site, where
patient care came first.
Client comment
“The Lanes Group drainage team worked well with our own colleagues. Working on a live hospital site demands the highest standards, not least in health and safety, and they were very much up to the task.”
Paul Kaczmarek, Senior Project Manager | NG Bailey
Project implementation
The eight-storey Pink Zone Building is the largest on the ARI campus.
It was being stripped, reconfigured, and refitted floor-by-floor, with medical services and patients moved between floors, and zones,
as the work progressed.
A fast-track CCTV survey and cleaning reporting system was put in place, allowing NG Bailey to most effectively plan the drainage work within tight deadlines set to complete the wider programme.
CCTV drainage surveys carried out with push-rod cameras found many of the steel and cast iron downpipes had become clogged with debris, scale, and residue from sanitation gels and detergents. In some cases, their capacity had been reduced by over 80 percent.
Electro-mechanical pipe cleaning equipment was used to scrub the insides of the pipes. Waste was vacuumed from an external manhole using a mini jet vac tanker. This smaller vehicle was selected because it could more easily operate in confined areas on the busy hospital campus.
Lanes drainage engineers also had to work in areas being used by hospital staff. In these cases, they worked behind plastic sheeting or within a tent to prevent contamination and ensure work site safety.
Results
During the six-month programme of works, the Lanes teams
surveyed and cleaned:
88 combined foul and rainwater downpipe stacks;
1,500 metres of internal pipework;
1,000 metres of underground pipework.
Lanes provided NG Bailey with detailed CCTV survey reports and a map of the internal drainage system which could be passed on to NHS Grampian to plan ongoing asset maintenance.
