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Passivhaus Premium Project Gains Certification

The Sheds took a step closer to becoming the UK’s first residential Passivhaus Premium when the solar panels on its roof were certified by Flexi-Orb earlier this week.

The solar panels, which cover almost the entire roof and are virtually invisible, have generated a stunning 10MWh of electricity in their first three months of operation.

Ofgem estimate that a typical four bedroom house uses 4.3MWh per year so The Sheds is certainly on track to exceed the Passivhaus Premium requirement to generate four times its primary energy useage. The Flexi-Orb certification clears the way for the excess energy the house generates to be exported to the National Grid and start contributing to a carbon-free future.

Subadra are both Project Manager and Certified Passivhaus Designers for The Sheds. If you’d like to discuss your green energy requirements or Passivhaus project with us then please contact Duncan Eastland. The Sheds will also be featured on Channel Four later this year.

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Check Before You Buy

We recently completed a desk-top study for a site with no indication of it’s former use. A thorough, detailed data review uncovered the site’s past use as a petrol filling station. Our subsequent investigations uncovered several abandoned tanks and lots of nasty contamination.

Our report was compiled on behalf of a client looking to lease the site. As a result of our work, they were able to negotiate an indemnity against historical contamination and a contribution to the costs of dealing with future development costs associated with removing the soil contamination. A bullet dodged for our client.

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Science Fiction or Reality?

We just loved this photograph. At first glance it looks like the worms from Dune. But actually its the business end of one of our core barrels full of different kinds of rock: chert, flint, river terrace deposits. A nightmare to drill through, but as you can see it’s all in a day’s work for our drill crew.

If you have a drilling requirement at your site and would like to discuss it with us, then please contact Angus Gale.

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A ‘Hole’ Lot of Problems

You never quite know what is lurking beneath the surface. We recently removed this underground fuel storage tank from a disused filling station site. When we inspected the tank we found this large corrosion hole which could have been a major source of contamination. A persuasive argument for replacing legacy single skin tanks with modern double skin tanks!

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Do I Need to Check for Contamination?

This is probably the most common question we get asked by clients when they are buying a site. The simple answer is almost always yes. Just last week we were asked this exact question. Our client was considering buying a brownfield site for redevelopment and had been given a two year old report prepared by others which gave the site a clean bill of health. Fortunately, they took our advice and had us visit the site to take a look. The photograph shows what we found when we sampled one of the groundwater monitoring wells: ~170mm of free-phase hydrocarbons floating on the water surface. Far from the site being ‘clean’, it had major contamination issues.

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Eyesore No More

Tank Removal

We’ve recently been working on the prestigious Moor Park Estate, decommissioning a disused filling station in readiness for the site’s redevelopment with housing. The filling station closed over twenty years ago and all that was left were a few dilapidated lock up garages and rat infested undergrowth. In the past few weeks we have safely decommissioned and removed eight underground fuel storage tanks together with associated fuel pipework. Our in house laboratory has also tested soil samples from around the excavations and across the site, allowing us to confirm that we have successfully removed any contaminated soil associated with the site’s former use. In the next week we will be handing the site back to the client for the next stage in its development.

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Subadra’s 2021 Results

We’re pleased to announce that 2021 was another hugely successful year for us. Turnover was up 50% and profits were up 600% from the previous year. This is a reflection of the hard work and dedication shown by all our staff. We are grateful to all our clients, suppliers and staff for their respective contributions to our success over the last year.

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Plate Bearing Testing

To meet the needs of the increasing demand for offsite construction for modular structures, highlighted by the government’s awarding of £3bn modular schools framework, we have invested in another set of fully accredited plate bearing testing equipment for assessing the suitability of temporary foundations or siting crane outriggers.
 
Of course, for those larger projects, we can offer full geo-environmental investigations, topographic surveys, utility surveys, laboratory testing, infiltration testing and CBR testing, all using our own equipment.

For more information, please contact Steven Partridge – 01296 739413

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Under Pressure

We do a lot of plate bearing and CBR tests every year. We can generally complete up to ten in a day, depending on ground conditions; softer ground takes longer to test. Our test kit is fully calibrated and we can provide you with results on the day of testing. If you’d like to know more then please contact Steven Partridge – 01296 739413.

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Heavy Lifting

There really is something quite hypnotic about watching very large aircraft taking off and landing, so our site team jumped at the chance of spending a few days carrying out soakaway testing at an RAF base.