The job: Over the summer, our team were tasked with a major upgrade of an award-winning and growing local nursery. This included creating a new room in place of the attic, at that time a storage space, laid with random boards and accessible only by a trapdoor in the staffroom.
Our goal, and principle challenge, was to finish before the pupils returned from their 6 week holiday.
Our approach: Our first objective was to finish all downstairs works so, should we miss our deadline, operations wouldn't entail any risk or undue interruptions for the children.
A substantial new steel infrastructure was required to support the new upstairs room, to be concealed in, and to reinforce, the downstairs walls.
Wall and floor sections were cut away. Vertical struts were embedded into the foundations, bridged by horizontal cross-girders. The structure was dressed with a fire-protective layer, and then the sections were replaced and painted to match the existing room colour.
Next, came the steel staircase. Using dimensions calculated from the available space, individual steel components were manufactured, and then assembled onsite by our engineers. The stairs were extremely heavy, necessitating pad stones to be inserted between the feet and foundations.
A fire-proof wall was constructed, enclosing the stairs in a safe space. This provided us with an easy access route from the outside upstairs which could be screened off from downstairs activities should needs be.
With the downstairs done, we then began on the attic. First we removed the boards and the old glass wool insulation, and laid down a chipboard platform.
At the same time, our roofers cut regular openings in the roof from a mobile scaffolding tower, before installing the side windows and reinstating the natural slates.
We then erected chipboard walling along the line of the attic trusses. High-quality Kingspan insulation, the most energy-efficient available, was inserted between the wall and rafters, hand-sawed onsite the ensure a perfect fit.
Our joiners then cut through the timber frame at the gable end, boring through the blockwork to define the corners of the end window. To ensure precision, the opening was cut with a still saw from the mobile tower outside.
While a concrete lintel was installed for support, measurements were sent to our workshop for our joiners and glaziers to fashion the new window. Then this was installed, along with steel balustrading. While the vertical bars and height had been designed for total safety, we added a precautionary extra 100mm to thwart even the most intrepid climbers!
To finish the main room, seen above, we put down a plywood layer down for the final vinyl floor covering, before plaster-boarding and painting all the surfaces. This left one last job –the colourful children's washroom. Find out about this challenge, and whether we finished it on time at: New Cloakroom for Local Nursery.
