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Let’s face it, site photos and behind-the-scenes work aren’t exactly the stuff of coffee table books. Ageing AHUs, leaky pumps, mystery pipework… not glamour shots, but at PMCES this is our kind of excitement. We live for problem solving, even if the visuals rarely make it past our Teams chat.
Still, every now and then a site visit throws up something a bit special, a technical quirk, an odd detail, or a moment of engineering curiosity that makes the job fun.
The snaps below are a small collection of our work.
CIBSE GUIDE H
CIBSE GUIDE H
CIBSE Guide H: Building Control Systems might not be the most dog-eared guide on the shelf, but don’t let that fool you, its content packs a serious punch.
Now, picture this: someone (let’s call him our very dedicated Scottish director) went through the entire guide, counted how often every word appeared, parsed it for boring ones like "the" and "and", and turned the rest into a word cloud, where the most used terms shout the loudest.
The result? A gloriously nerdy tribute to one of the most underrated guides in the building services world.
MALT FACTORY
MALT FACTORY
Industrial extraction isn’t glamorous, but it is clever. As Britain takes the tradition of beer seriously, supporting an industrial solutions provider in upgrading the extraction for one of the UK’s long-established malt producers was a natural fit.
It is also always satisfying when a simple site photo turns into a design full of shapes and symbols that mean nothing to most people, but everything to getting the system right.
KING'S CROSS
A place that’s always moving and occasionally needs a glow up, with old meeting new at every turn. This has meant refining adiabatic designs, selecting new pumps, and resolving mechanical & electrical queries on the spot. Site assessments and quick sketch mark ups have fast tracked design decisions and approvals, helping keep the hub working as smoothly as possible...even if not all commuters agree.
BACK TO SCHOOL
In decarbonisation conversations, old buildings in daily use rarely get the spotlight. Yet they’re often where small design shifts make the biggest impact, creating safer, smarter spaces, for instance, for the future engineers sitting inside them.
OFFICE SPACE
Where most people see a calm view of a tree outside the window, Technical Services Managers see something else entirely. A single picture can reveal acoustic risks, fire safety considerations, planning constraints, structural quirks, and a dozen other details that shape how a space really works. What looks peaceful to the eye is often full of clues, and opportunities, to make a building perform better.
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY
This pneumatic valve is not a museum piece, by virtue of the fact that is still in operation on site in Glasgow. For all the wonders of modern tech allowing electronic control, micro-bore pipework filled with compressed air, (nicely installed, too), is a marvellous example of mechanical engineering.
The ancient insulation wasn't doing much, though!
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY
The thousands of tonnes of steel used to make this scaffolding frame allowed conservation experts to clean the writing at the top of the dome.
The 2 foot tall words can be read by those attending their graduation from the University of Edinburgh at McEwan Hall.
HONG KONG
HONG KONG
A housing association building some massive towers. It's a single street in the Sau Mau Ping district. 18000 apartments in 22 blocks, being built simultaneously, is quite a scene!
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