May Fourteen, 2012 –
Today was our free day to go to actual jobsites and have
interviews with people relating to our topics.
I went to Brimsdown, which was about a 30-minute rail ride from
Liverpool St. station. I met with a man
at Paddington named Michael Peters who was a manager at the bathroom pod
manufacturing plant. Paddington is a
company that is owned by Ardmore. The
Ardmore is a general contractor that does around 500 to 600 million dollars in
revenue each year. During my interview I
asked many questions that pertained to the sustainability of modular
construction and the bathroom pods. He
explained to me that any timber that is used must have an FSC stamp on it,
which means it is a sustainable product.
The Paddington group had a contract for the Olympic games and they
produced around 2500 bathroom units for the athlete dorms.
The bathroom units that they produce range from 2500 Pounds
to the most expensive, which was about 25,000 Pounds. When a pod is produced one is tested for
about 10 days, each one is tested for water tightness and pressure tested to 10
Barr.
Michael allowed me to walk through the manufacturing part of
the plant, which was just a basic assembly line. This specific company chose to be very
flexible in their production so they only have 2 permanent fixtures, which are
just rivet guns. They do not cut their
steel on site; they order it specifically from a steel manufacture and cut to
the specifications on the shop drawings.
The steel used on the pods is a thicker steel about 60 mil so if one
were to fall off of a truck they would be able to withstand the fall.
When a pod is finished it is wrapped and weather proofed
then placed on a truck in sequential order.
This allows for the contractor installing them to take them right off of
the truck and place them with the crane.
The only delays that can affect the installation are certain weather
conditions and the wind factor being the major delay.
After visiting Paddington I got back on the rail and was headed to the Citizen M Hotel in the London Bridge area. The hotel had just been turned over to the owner and commissioned that day. I walked around the back because I couldn't get in. I ran into the site manager and he was kind enough to answer some questions and gave me a lot of good information. It started raining pretty hard so I gathered my things and started my journey back to the Mentone Hotel.
Looks like you got really good information for your thesis. I wouldn't have minded going with you to this visit even though it isn't exactly specific to my thesis topic. I would be surprised if you found a company that did the same thing in the U.S.. I had been wondering where all these construction sites in the middle of the city get materials from and now I know that they come from outlying towns. It is pretty cool that this company is so flexible with design because that would not be the case in the states. I would be interested to know how much profit they make on each unit and how many units they produce each year. It is kind of weird that all they do is produce bathroom pods. Did these bathroom units include bidets?
ReplyDelete