Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Sorry about the title. This blog is about the issues surrounding working on someone else’s site; something it seems that M&E engineers have to put up with a lot.

The work being carried out by my employer (ATC joint venture or ATCjv) involves installing a long term temporary ventilation system to replace a slightly cobbled together short term system – please see earlier blog. This involves fitting out most of the bottom floor of the station (level -4) with four ventilation fans, ducting and associated attenuators and dampers. See image below:

Temporary Ventilation Fan Installation

Co-ordinating the installation process has occupied most of my time for the past month. It involves threading the equipment through the existing ticket hall structure, most of which is still an active building site.  As you can imagine this creates a nest of interfacing problems with the main site civils contractor, Costain-Skanska Joint Venture (CSjv).

The CSjv site is running to its own schedule and is unwilling to give up an inch of it to allow the tunnel ventilation works to go in. They have taken the step of insisting that ATCjv take Prime Contractor or ‘PC’ responsibility of our work area; leaving the unusual situation of a ‘Russian doll’ arrangement where we own and run a site four stories underground inside another separate site.  The extents of the ATC site are shown below:

The ATC site shown in green (four floors underground in the CSjv basement)

The process of setting up the PC area was not smooth. Any readers who have yet to undertake the SMSTS course may be in the dark as to the requirements of holding PC of a site.  The full requirements are on the HSE website here:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/cdm/2015/principal-contractors.htm

Keeping it as brief as possible the PC is the ‘duty holder’ of legal responsibility of the site; they are required to produce and assure the health and safety of the workforce, compliance with environment and noise regulations, secure the site and provide welfare. The end result is a substantial pile of paperwork that no-one will ever look at unless an accident happens.

PC Paperwork. It’s what I joined up for.

I found it interesting to consider the depth and detail of site paperwork compared to that I remember being in place on RE construction sites.

The idea that ATCjv can setup and run a complete site in the middle of another fully functioning site is a bit silly. When that site is underground it is very silly.  However, ATCjv have been instructed by Crossrail to do so: his brings around an odd situation that to use their welfare facility the workforce has to walk 1.1km along a tunnel and then climb to the surface to use the toilet (in reality they just find a dark corner of the tunnel!)

The Site Welfare Facilities

Digging slightly deeper (excuse the pun) it seems this arrangement has come about because the first work group to enter the site from ATCjv were roundly regarded as “cowboys” and managed to get a Crossrail H&S warning raised against them. The CSjv site basically looked for any way to transfer the perceived H&S risk over to ATCjv; this has then caused nearly two years of paperwork hassle for ATCjv to run and administer a completely separate underground site.

It seems that in construction first impressions are everything.

Defects – On our phase 2 placements we rarely get a chance to get involved with any maintenance or defect periods. This week however I have been lucky enough to be involved with a previous Carillion site that was finished in 2013, it helps that it is next to my current site, see Fig 1. The Library of Birmingham is the most visited tourist attraction outside of London, and it leaks like a sieve.

With the storm rains that we have been having, a defect has been identified where rain water is getting under the curtain walling on 2 floors with a terrace level. This is most likely through the service exclusions (sorry E&Ms but you do like to mess up a good impermeable box). I do not know the contract obligations that exist with this previous project, however Carillion have sent a team to control the ingress of water. The plan included puddle pumps, sandbags and cat litter, seriously, cat litter, enough for a pride of lions.

The issues that have arisen now include:

1. What is the plan to stop water ingress during future storms?
2. What was the design storm used and how did it compare to the weather experienced?
3. Is it a design flaw or is there a construction issue?
4. What are Carillion doing using a separate project team to fix the issue?

This immediate reaction has bought some favour with the library (Q4), but there will undoubtedly be a redesign and some work completed in the coming months. Watch this space and I will explain the contract obligations and where liability for the works and defects lie.