8Build Trials Liftroller E Mover for Waterloo Refurbishment Project

Waterloo is not an easy place to run a refurbishment. The site sits on one of London's busiest pedestrian routes, everything has to come in through the existing building, and there is nowhere to put a pallet down that is not in somebody's way.

8Build took the Liftroller E Mover onto that job to see whether it could take the pain out of moving material around a live floor. The trial went well enough that they want it on the next one.

What they were actually testing

This was not a demo in a car park. 8Build ran the unit in live site conditions and watched four things:

• how quickly material moved through a constrained building
• whether it fitted the way their crews already worked, or fought them
• what the operators thought of it after they had used it for a while
• whether the numbers stacked up well enough to plan future jobs around it

That last point is the one that decides these things. Plenty of gear works on the day. Less of it pays for itself over a programme.

8Build ran the trial on their refurbishment project at Waterloo in central London.

What came back off the trial

Material moved a lot faster. 8Build reported a 60 per cent cut in material handling time against the way they had been doing it. Most of that came from removing double handling. Load it once, move it once, put it down where the trade is working rather than where there happens to be room.

It worked with the crane rather than against it. The crane lands material, the E Mover takes it from there. Nobody stands around waiting for a hook to come free before a pallet can be moved twenty metres.

Fewer people on heavy loads. Manual handling dropped, and so did the number of jobs where two or three people had to stop what they were doing to shift something awkward.

The site stayed tidier. Once you have a machine that can move a load quickly, material stops being dumped wherever it lands. That is worth more on a tight site than it sounds.

Why Waterloo was a fair test

Central London throws the same problems at you that any dense city site does:

• Access is narrow. Standard doorways, existing corridors, no room to swing anything.
• Noise is restricted. You cannot run a diesel machine inside an occupied block all day.
• There is no laydown area. Whatever you bring in has to go somewhere useful straight away.
• The public are right there. A load being dragged across a floor near an open facade is a risk you do not want.

If a system copes with all four at once, it will cope with most refurbishment work.

Where the E Mover fits in the range

The E Mover is the compact end of it. It carries up to 1,200 kg, adjusts between 530 mm and 1,230 mm, charges from a standard 230V outlet, and runs on remote control so the operator stays clear of the load rather than pushing it.

Battery power is the part people underrate on refurbishment. No exhaust inside the building, no fuel on the floor, and it is quiet enough to run in an occupied block without a call from the building manager.

It is not the answer to everything. If you are running long straight distances across an open floor plate, the Liftroller Wagon does that job with less kit involved. If a crane is landing material at height, you need a Liftroller Floor deck to get it into the building before anything moves it along the slab. The E Mover is what you use once the material is inside and the spaces get tight.

Working inside a stripped out building on the former US embassy refurbishment in Oslo.

What 8Build said

"The Liftroller E Mover exceeded our expectations during the Waterloo trial," said a representative from 8Build. "Its compact design and efficient operation made it perfect for our urban refurbishment requirements. We're excited to incorporate this technology into future projects."

Off the back of the trial, 8Build intend to build Liftroller into how they plan similar urban refurbishment jobs rather than treating it as a one-off.

The full write-up of the job sits on the 8Build Waterloo project page.

Landing material at height is the first half of the problem. Moving it once it is inside is the other half.

Pricing a city job around it

If you are putting a number on a fit-out or refurbishment in a city centre, material handling is usually the line that gets underestimated. We have written up the whole planning process in the city centre fit-out logistics guide, and the money side sits in our cost savings breakdown.

Talk it through with us

If you are running a refurbishment where access is the hard part, tell us the building, the tightest opening and the heaviest thing you need to move. We will tell you which unit fits and whether it is worth hiring or buying. Get in touch and we will work through it properly.