4 towers, 155 dwellings, Terrain FUZE HDPE customised through Polypipe Advantage Prefabrication Service.
The project overview
Eastman Village (formerly Harrow View East) is an ambitious, multi-phased project built on the old Kodak factory site in Harrow. The project will deliver a complete new urban neighbourhood of over 2,000 homes together with workspace, retail and leisure facilities. The new homes include 40% affordable housing and a new healthcare facility.
Polypipe Building Services (PBS) is currently providing drainage systems for 155 dwellings, across 4 towers – working with M&E Contractor, Millharbour on behalf of Barratt London.
Custom drainage system clicked perfectly with project on former Kodak site.
Eastman Village is a highly specified and carefully designed project which incorporates many community amenities within a development that delivers exceptional accommodation. The building layout is therefore quite complex, requiring a considered approach to how the M&E elements deliver all of the facilities. The drainage system brief was therefore challenging in that the bathrooms were highly specified, but the build schedule was also very ambitious.
The Client decided to use a prefabricated approach to the installation so as to hit project deadlines, with a highly customised system that would fit the bathroom design specification.
A fully bespoke solution
Following an initial analysis, Millharbour worked closely with technical staff at Polypipe Building Services and the Advantage Team to create a totally bespoke solution. It was decided that Terrain FUZE would be the ideal system for the project. Terrain FUZE is made of HDPE and incorporates an extensive range of fittings, and is therefore highly adaptable and customisable. Terrain FUZE is also lightweight and highly resistant to impact and abrasion, it’s therefore the perfect system for the high-level pipework in the basement. This meant that a single system could be used seamlessly for the whole building, making it possible to develop a tailored solution that could be installed rapidly.
The Advantage Design Team created a design that combined butt-welds and expansion joints which meant that the complex stack design could be installed with just a single electrofusion coupling on the ground floor - to connect the stacks to the high-level pipework in the basement. Ideally, the customer wanted the stacks to use a minimal number of electrofusion couplings. Therefore, each stack section had a ring seal at the top into which the next section could be push-connected from the floor above, negating the need for electrofusion couplings between floors. All of which makes for rapid installation.
Andy Stylianou, Company Director at Millharbour, said: “The challenge of a highly specified design and a tight project schedule meant we had to think out of the box. Polypipe Building Services have such a complete understanding of the different techniques available for jointing drainage stacks which together with their prefabrication capability meant that we were able to design a system that made quite a complex installation completely straightforward.
"The fact that we were able to fit entire stacks with just a single electrofusion coupling is impressive – as this was effectively the only stack jointing that we had to do on-site. Really quite clever. Because the amount of on-site jointing work was minimised and as the system was robust but lightweight we could use the available manpower very efficiently. Once the high-level work was in place, the stacks just shot up the building.”
Why work with Polypipe Building Services
Robert Bruce, Technical Sales Manager for Polypipe Building Services in London said: “Millharbour were looking for a system which enabled a highly efficient installation, minimising the need for plant and maximising the productivity of the install team. But at the same time, it had to be carefully configured to work with the design of the apartments. And so, we needed to design a bespoke system that minimised the number of on-site connections - with an emphasis on push-fit rather than electrofusion couplings.
“The high-level elements in the basement required careful on-site fabrication by skilled installers. A fast, efficient and straightforward install up the building was going to be vital to keep to the schedule – without having to deploy large amounts of manpower. “Prefabrication and careful design really helped deliver the customisation and streamlined installation that the project demanded. The guys could just drop each floor section of stack down into the expansion joint below.
“And being so lightweight, Terrain FUZE is also very manpower-efficient compared to conventional systems. One person can carry an entire stack section compared to cast-iron which would require a team in itself.”
