Palace of Westminster

Services Rerouting & Upgrade Works in Grade I Listed Palace

We are undertaking the services rerouting package as part of the overhaul of the cast iron roofs at the Palace of Westminster.

We have been tasked to investigate the existing mechanical and electrical building services internally and externally to the above-mentioned roof areas. In the various differing areas of the roof space, this may require the protection, diversion, provision of new, or the modification of the existing services as necessary to accommodate the roof overhaul works in line with the overall specification and programme.

The main elements of the work under this project comprise the refurbishment and repair of damaged elements of the cast iron roof structure and its components. Our services diversions, decommissions, and temporary plant and service installations are crucial to allowing these repairs to take place in a safe and efficient manner.

To enable the works we designed and installed a temporary site power distribution system, this had to be capable of feeding multiple high power draw tools at the same time, whilst maintaining the reliability required to prevent any downtime for the works. We have also provided a temporary emergency escape lighting to the relevant work areas.

We would very happily recommend East West Connect, they have been crucial to the ongoing success of the projects taking place at the Palace of Westminster.

Shepley Engineers

We worked with Historic England to ensure that our works were in line with all listed building regulations.

Prior to any works taking place all drawings were signed off by all parties, and these approval periods were factored into the planning and programming of our works.

Our site team undertook a thorough survey phase of all roof areas, investigating and verifying existing services, to create an overall plan of all services installed in these areas. Prior to this, one single database of information regarding the installations within the roof did not exist, and so our task proved invaluable not only to the project, but to the Palace’s building management team, and the project team as a whole.

As part of our survey we implemented an easy to follow services tagging regime so that all stakeholders and site workers from all trades could simply and safely identify any services they may encounter. These tags were also plotted on multiple drawings, and regularly updated as further information was discovered. A key feature of the tagging system allowed us to clearly show the areas each service feeds, this enabled us to easily plan changeovers with key stakeholders as they were fully aware of any impacts from services shutdowns.

To allow the roof repair works to take place, one of our initial works was the protection of all services within the roof space.

Due to the age and condition of some services, the risk of disruption via damage was found to be extremely high in many areas and this meant that we needed to find bespoke solutions to protect sensitive items whilst still allowing operatives to access their working space and undertake their required repairs.

Project breakdown