Invicta Building Services Ltd were delighted to be appointed work on behalf of Southern Housing Group with the residents of the 2 separate blocks of Sydenham Court housing complex in Fratton, Portsmouth. The £1,100,000 project involved the complete upgrade of the heating system, including the installation in 2 plantrooms of a total of 6 new Remeha Quinta ACE cascade mounted gas boilers, Trend IQ4E Controller BEMS, Altecnic Heat Interface Units (HIUs), Honewell T4 thermostats, heating systems and all associated MEP for elderly and vulnerable residents in 82 dwellings in the 2 blocks.
Each block also incorporated a new cold water storage tank and cold water booster set for mains boosted supplies.
Each dwelling had a new HIU installed along with new pipework, radiators, PITRV / LSV valves programmable room thermostat & filter unit.
Temporary boiler plant was also required throughout the project to provide heating and hot water to all residents.
Pre-construction services included
• Completion of design by Watts Consulting Ltd and enhanced into working drawings via surveys of each plantroom and 82 dwellings by our Head of Design Roger Alderton.
• Production of a construction phase plan which was updated throughout the project
The project started in March 2022 and during the course of the project we were asked to complete additional refurbishment works on behalf of Southern Housing including new suspended ceilings and fire stopping works.
The project was overseen by our Project Manager and an SMSTS qualified senior site manager who provided updates and progress reports to the client.
Although stringent government Covid guidelines had been eased, we kept a number in place as we were working with elderly and vulnerable residents.
An experienced Resident Liaison Officer was appointed to this project to provide residents and other stakeholders with an available on-site point of contact to ensure smooth and immediate communication concerning all aspects of the refurbishment project.
All risks were managed through our construction phase H&S plan by way of Risk Assessments and Method Statements and all documentation was constantly monitored and updated as required.
Our Nebosh certificated Health and Safety Manager conducted random Health and Safety inspections to ensure H and S standards were maintained and all relevant legal requirements were complied with.
There were no accidents reported for the duration of this project.
Tight control of cost planning and management was by the way project job costings and procurement schedules overseen by the project manager and procurement manager to enable us to keep up-to date records of expenditure and applications etc.
Handover was carried out with the client, Stephen English of Southern Housing and their consulting engineer, Darren Watts of Watts Consultancy Ltd, during a site walk and demonstration meeting, to ensure that all works had been completed to the client’s requirements.
As part of our final inspection with residents on completion of the works we always conduct a resident feedback questionnaire following a common set of measures to identify their level of satisfaction with different aspects of the project.
Our Key Performance Indicators include the quality of work, disruption caused, appointments kept, service provided by staff, communication re works, housekeeping in the property, overall satisfaction, and willingness to recommend, and the residents are requested to complete the following questions contained in the questionnaire with 3 responses:
1. Unacceptable.
2. Satisfactory.
3. Excellent.
We completed the modernisation works within 82 properties and handed these over to Southern Housing Group. Of these, over 80% of the residents responded to the feedback questionnaire. Based on the residents’ responses Communication re Works by our site staff received the highest score of a superb 95.17%, and willingness to Recommend us scored a commendable 94.69%.
Finally, when all the scores were totalled, we are extremely pleased to state we received an average across all categories of 94.34%, and within this there were some exceptionally pleasing results.
Furthermore, we were pleased that at the regular progress meetings with our client, Stephen English of Southern Housing Group, we were regularly informed of the positive feedback received from the residents.
The table below shows the scores as a percentage that we achieved.
Social Values always play a part in our relationship with clients and residents, and we tailor these based on the project and consider where it can have a visible impact. In this case, we supported the Sydenham Court project in a number of ways.
Residents were able to take advantage of our Open Office Policy and visit with enquiries or just sit and have a coffee.
Some residents were unable due to mobility issues to collect prescriptions and our team often helped the residents by collecting these from local chemists.
As our legacy we part funded a Miele Commercial washing machine for the communal laundry room which was available for all residents in both blocks to access.
Resident Feedback
It’s always nice to have the efforts of our hard-working site teams acknowledged and positives for them raised at the recent Southern Housing meeting regarding our performance at Sydenham Court in Portsmouth.
“IBS (Invicta Building Services) have come in for special praise, the site manager Dave Johnson, RLO Callum Bedford and the fitting team, are professional, courteous and very clean”
Well done Dave and Callum, two of our most experienced team members.
Pre work photos
Post Works
