Slot drain network extension on a live factory floor
Cutting, breaking out and rebuilding a slot drain network while the factory kept running, tying into live drains under a fixed handover date.
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 three problems on top of the usual ones: a live factory floor with people and plant moving around us, live drains to connect into, and a date it had to be finished by.
We cut and removed the floor slab along the new run, and an excavation crew dug the trenches out to the depths and falls we needed. Room was tight the whole way, which is the part that slows a job like this down. Everything open got barriered, coned and boarded so the factory could keep moving past it.
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. Grating sits flush with the floor, which matters when a forklift is going to run over it every day.
The focus through all of it was keeping ourselves and the factory's own people safe while the plant carried on around us. 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, with the walkway barriered off. 
The slot formed to suit the grating the client supplied. 
Grating in and flush with the floor.
The three things a job like this is judged on
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Compliance
Every open trench was barriered, coned and boarded before anyone walked past it, on a floor we did not control.
-
Quality
Falls set to move water and a slot built to the grating the client already had, not to whatever was easiest to form.
-
Speed
The factory kept running the whole time and the handover date did not move.
Where this one fits
This job is floor and slab sawing work, and the service page has the depths, diameters and kit behind it. Timaru is on our normal run, so if you have something similar there we are not making a special trip.
Other jobs we can show you
Doorway cut out of an interior concrete wall
Vertical and horizontal pre cuts with the hand saw, then the hydraulic saw to finish, inside an occupied building with the area sheeted and cleaned.
Attic window cut through 400 mm heritage stone
A new attic window and lintel slot cut through 400 mm of heritage stone, with the interior protected from water and debris throughout.
Data duct cores through a supermarket floor
A run of core holes through a supermarket floor to reach the data cable ducts underneath, marked out and drilled one pair at a time.
Timaru out to the Mackenzie
- Timaru Our base
- Temuka 15 min from Timaru
- Geraldine 35 min from Timaru
- Ashburton 75 min from Timaru
- Twizel 150 min from Timaru
We also work across Canterbury, North Otago and the Mackenzie. If the job is worth the drive, we will drive it.
Got one like this?
Tell us what you have got, where it is and when you need it done. Matt answers the phone, and if he is under a saw he will text you back.