Slot drain network extension on a live factory floor
Cutting, removing and rebuilding a slot drain network while the factory kept running, tying into live drains with time limits.
A Timaru factory needed its slot drain network extended, and the floor it ran through could not stop working while we did it. The job came with challenges on top of the usual ones: a live factory floor, live drains to connect into, and time limits.
We cut the floor slab along the new run and removed it, and an excavation crew dug the trenches out to the depths and falls we needed, with very limited room.
Then we prepped and poured the bottoms of the slot drains with enough fall to move water, boxed the sides and poured those. That is what makes the slot: two poured walls with a gap between them, set to the width the grating needs.
The client supplied the steel grating, so we built the slotted opening to suit it rather than the other way round.
The focus through all of it was keeping ourselves and the factory's own people safe, and finishing to a high standard. We are very happy with how this one turned out, and the same work has come back to us since.
What it looked like
Photographed on the job at the time, on a phone, in the state the site was actually in.
The run set out and cut, with the plant still moving around us. 
Slab broken out along the cut line and cleared away. 
Trench out to depth and fall, tying in to the existing drainage. 
Reinforcing and polythene in before the bottoms went down. 
Sides boxed and braced, ready to pour. 
The slot formed to suit the grating the client supplied. 
Grating in and flush with the floor.
What this job shows
- The safety of our people and the factory's own staff came first, on a floor we did not control.
- Falls set to move water and a slot built to the grating the client already had, not to whatever was easiest to form.
- The factory kept running the whole time we were there.
Where this one fits
This job is floor and slab sawing work. The service page covers what the service involves and how to get it priced.
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Timaru out to the Mackenzie
- Timaru Our base
- Temuka South Canterbury
- Geraldine South Canterbury
- Ashburton Mid Canterbury
- Twizel About two and a half hours from Timaru
We also work across Mid Canterbury, North Otago and the Mackenzie.
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