Ketley House - Fire Compliance
& Cladding Replacement
The Challenge: Modernising Fire Compliance in a Busy Urban Environment
Starfish Construction undertook the fire remediation works at Ketley House, a residential building with commercial units on the ground level. The project's location on a busy high street road presented several unique logistical challenges, including maintaining a safe and efficient worksite for the apartment occupants, respecting their privacy and ensuring the ground-floor commercial units remained open to customers.
Key challenges included:
- Minimal space for deliveries and welfare setup
- Occupied apartments and commercial units
- Maintaining access and safety for both residents and commercial unit visitors
Innovative Solutions & Approach with Diagnose, Design and Deliver
Overcoming urban restrictions can often be a challenge. However, our knowledgeable team has vast experience managing complex projects in constrained environments. Before any works commenced on site, we developed a structured plan. Our Diagnose, Design, and Deliver methodology is at the core of everything we do and ensures we deliver effective project outcomes.
Our team implemented several innovative measures, such as just-in-time deliveries and temporary walkways, to overcome the logistical issues while ensuring minimal disruption to residents and businesses. Our planning and site project management approach and processes continually address challenging project locations.
- We believe in a coordinated approach to project management. Our 'Integrated Divisions' model involves designing scaffolding and access solutions in-house, and our technical and design teams work closely with our commercial department to engineer effective solutions. Our integrated approach ensures a seamless and efficient project delivery.
- We carry out just-in-time deliveries organised outside peak hours to optimise the limited space for unloading materials.
- By installing temporary walkways and signage, we ensured safe access for the commercial units' staff and customers while maintaining health and safety compliance.
- Our 'Resident Communication Hub' was a central platform for providing regular updates to those living on-site. This proactive communication strategy helped to minimise inconvenience and keep residents informed about the project's progress and upcoming activities, demonstrating our commitment to stakeholder engagement.
Maintaining strong communication lines and careful scheduling ensured the project ran smoothly despite the challenging site conditions.
Technical Excellence: Our Commitment to Compliance and Longevity
The project involved completely removing the existing timber-backed cladding system and replacing it with a modern, fire-compliant aluminium system. This ensured the project's robust technical excellence and provided quality in material selection and our work.
Key steps in the project included:
- Conducting offsite testing of the chosen cladding materials to ensure compliance with stringent fire safety regulations.
- Consulting with fire engineers to design and implement a robust fire barrier system.
- Structural and serviceability checks were conducted in collaboration with façade structural engineers, ensuring the long-term safety and performance of the building's exterior.
Our in-house design team utilised the latest systems to manage the planning and implementation of the works, providing U-value calculations and condensation checks to ensure the new system would meet and, wherever possible, exceed current building regulations.
- Location: Ketley House, Garratt Lane, London
- Sector: Residential - busy urban location
- Challenges overcome: Residents were kept informed via our dedicated Hub
- Safe access was maintained to apartments and retail units
- Façade Structural Engineer was appointed, and fire testing was carried out
- Cladding system removed and replaced, fire door remedial works
- Waterproofing and LPS system upgrades.
25 weeks
Duration
507 m2
Cladding system removed and replaced
In addition to our internal expertise, Starfish Construction collaborated with various specialists to ensure we delivered the highest technical and safety standards on the project. We appointed a Façade Structural Engineer to conduct structural and serviceability checks, ensuring that the cladding system would meet regulatory requirements and perform effectively long-term. This included selecting and approving the correct fixings for the replacement cladding system. Additionally, we undertook detailed fire door surveys as part of the project scope, ensuring all entrances met fire safety standards. These actions were critical to the project's success, adding layers of compliance and safety that exceeded expectations.
Delivering Ahead of Schedule
We successfully completed the external works at Ketley House three weeks ahead of the planned and agreed schedule. Despite the site's complexities, this early completion is a testament to our efficiency and commitment to delivering high-quality work in a timely manner without compromising on safety or budget, leaving stakeholders impressed by our approach, processes and team.
Project Scores
After each project is completed, we ask for genuine feedback. This is not simply a box-ticking exercise but a chance for us to improve in any areas where we are not meeting our ELEVATE company pledge standards. You will see from the feedback below, that we met each applicable area with 10/10.
Starfish Construction employees were always courteous and polite. 10
Starfish Construction explained the work in a way we understood before the work started. 10
Starfish Construction kept us informed at all stages of the work. 10
Starfish Construction took steps to protect and respect our property and contents, together with a minimal environmental impact. 10
Starfish Construction kept disruption and disturbance to a minimum. 10
Starfish Construction completed the work safely to the agreed timescale, keeping us informed of any delay. 10
We were happy with the quality of workmanship and the finished installation. 10
We were always able to contact Starfish Construction's staff if necessary. 10
Queries/complaints dealt with in an efficient and prompt manner. N/A
Starfish Construction's personnel wore ID and company clothing at all times. 10
Finally, we were very satisfied with the overall service we received. 10
Final Comments
Would you use us again?
Yes
What were our Key Strengths?
The project was very well run, both on-site and at the management level. I can't fault Starfish Construction on this site.
What could we have done better?
I can't think of anything to add here.
The client administrator expressed satisfaction with how the project was managed, specifically highlighting the proactive communication with residents and the smooth delivery of works under challenging conditions. Our continued objective is to build trusted relationships with clients, and the initial praise feedback on Ketley House is another example of our dedication to client satisfaction and project excellence. It should instil confidence in our future clients.
Robert Morgan, Director of Projects, Midlands, London & South
