D-Drill team has all the right moves for track sawing job

D-Drill & Sawing’s Wales branch was served up a challenge at a former Newport nightclub – and the team proved they’d got all the right moves when it comes to track sawing.

Bridgend branch manager Ben Richards thought the team were being asked to remove a small section of the side a building when he first went to meet the client to look at the job.

But it turned out the plan was to take a clean cut all the way down the 14 metres of the side of a building following the demolition of another part of the property to make way for new student accommodation.

“I’ve been on the tools for eight years, and I’ve never been asked to do anything like this before,” said Ben. “The height and depth was something that I’d not come across before but when I spoke to the client I suggested how we would approach it, and he was very happy for us to go ahead.”

The wall was around 700mm thick and was made up of a range of materials including stone, brick and concrete.

The plan was to use a specialist Pentruder track-saw that can cut deep, vertically and remote controlled with a 1600mm blade to cut through it and leave a clean finish.

The saw was attached to the wall using resin bars and the team of two were raised to the right height via a scissor lift that had a generator to power the saw.

They cut through around one metre of the wall at a time and skip was raised in place using a forklift so the pieces would drop straight in. The process was repeated over and over again until the whole side of the wall was removed.

For health and safety purposes, the area around the cutting work was cordoned off with heras fencing and due to the remote-controlled capacity of the machine it meant the operators could work away from the demolition area. The job took around five days to complete – leaving a clean finish and a very happy customer.

“It was a really interesting job, and satisfying too,” said Ben. “I kept in touch with the team while they were working, and they sent me pictures as they went because it was such a different type of job.

“The client was very happy, and because of the work we did there, we’ve already been asked about more jobs in the new build part of the project including drilling holes for ventilation, plumbing, electrics and so on.

“It’s always nice to be presented with a challenge and to be able to come up with the right solution to solve it, especially when you’ve got the right equipment and team with the experience and expertise to deliver it.”

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