Sector profile article: by Plastic Surgeon specialist repairs for the UK construction industry Date: June 2011 _____________________________________________________________________________

Plastic Surgeon specialist repair for the facilities management sector

Plastic Surgeon provides cosmetic repair and fine finishing for virtually any interior or exterior surface in the built environment. The cosmetic repairs can be used to restore most surfaces in any type of building; new or old, big or small, contemporary or traditional.

Plastic Surgeon s repairs can be applied to damaged surfaces of practically any material, including glass, stone, brick, metal, ceramic, enamel, wood and of course, plastic, hence the company name. The damage that can be repaired includes: cracks, dents, chips, gouges, splits, staining, discolouring, and graffiti damage.

The company can restore damage to anything from glass facias and exterior wall cladding panels, to ceramic sinks, wooden doors and upvc windows. The list is almost endless.

Plastic Surgeon directly employs a nationwide team of nearly 100 specially trained finishers operating from seven regional centres throughout the UK. The finishers restore damaged items using highly skilled cosmetic finishing and restoration techniques, including colour theory, colour mixing and colour matching. With a wide selection of tools and equipment and special finishing agents such as two-part fillers, polishes, pigments and paints at their disposal, the finishers rebuild damaged surface profiles, before sanding, polishing and colouring to match the undamaged areas .

The company doesn t carry out structural repairs. It focuses on surfaces because these are most vulnerable to damage and everyday wear and tear. From the moment a surface is manufactured, fitted, or used, it can get damaged, either accidentally, through vandalism, or just general wear and tear. This specialist repair service can be widely used in facilities management. By restoring damaged surfaces, the facilities manager removes the need to replace them, therefore saving and extending the life of the item.

Plastic Surgeon s cosmetic repairs save the hassle of fitting replacement items (if indeed replacements can be found). They also save time, as items are repaired in-situ, with the average repair taking just 90 minutes. Plastic Surgeon s repairs are very cost-effective. For every 1 spent on repairs with Plastic Surgeon, customers can save 3 on replacement material costs (excluding labour).

Repairing rather than replacing is the environmentally-friendly choice as it decreases waste and therefore the carbon-footprint of any given project. Plastic Surgeon has, over the last two decades, saved thousands of tonnes of waste going to landfill by repairing damaged items, thus avoiding the need to replace them.

Product development

The cosmetic repair service as it exists today is the result of an MBO in 2008, by the current Managing Director, Rob Mouser and his Finance Director, Trevor Harreld. As the MBO was finalised the recession hit in the UK house building industry and the new directors realised that they had to 2

adapt their product to new markets in order to survive. The business was completely restructured as the focus shifted from house build repairs to the construction industry.

Over the past three years it has grown to be the UK s largest provider of fine finishing, snagging and cosmetic repairs to the construction and house building sectors. As part of the company s on-going business strategy, the company has expanded into new sectors related to the construction industry and facilities management was a natural extension of this. The company has expanded the types of repair it can carry out and stretched the skills of its finishers on an ever increasing range of projects for facilities management companies.

As a result of research at its headquarters, Plastic Surgeon continually develops new finishing techniques to tackle an increasing range of materials that it can repair. It has recently developed new glass repair techniques and trained all its finishers in the new skill. This enables finishers to carry out distortion free repairs to deep scratches, even on curved glass surfaces such as balustrades.

It has also developed a new stone repair technique whereby a heat gun is used to pre-warm areas such as a window cill, in temperatures as low as -50 C, to overcome frost and allow a repair to set correctly.

Plastic Surgeon has also developed a new formulation of its base repair compound, moving away from a plaster based product to a modified cementitious system which offers ultra -fast gain of strength. This results in yielding better adhesion and most importantly, it can be used in wet conditions and on wet and damp stones. This effectively mea that in the British climate the ns weather is now less of a hindrance than before, which benefits customers because deadlines are met and not held up by the weather.

Health and Safety is a vital part of Plastic Surgeon s cosmetic repair service and the company has put in place rigorous training schemes in order to ensure that its workforce is fully compliant with the latest Health and Safety legislation. Over 90% of its finishers hold the industry standard CSCS (Construction Related Certification Scheme). It has achieved accreditation from all the major bodies, including: the NHBC Safemark, SAFEcontractor, SMAS Worksafe contractor, CHAS, Beacon, Constructionline and the Cast Stone Association. It is also working towards ISO:14001.

Customer satisfaction

Plastic Surgeon s cosmetic repair and surface finishing service is becoming ever more popular as facilities managers appreciate both the cost-saving and environmental benefits of the company s Don t skip it, fix it philosophy.

80% of the company s business is from repeat customers. Many testimonials applaud the high levels of customer satisfaction, as the extracts below demonstrate.

It took the Fine Finisher less than two days to complete the work and everyone, including BAM Construction and the University is completely happy with the way the doors now look. It has saved in the region of 4,000 for their replacement, plus the delay there would have been in re-ordering which could have run to weeks. - Iain McCallum, O Neill Interiors

Until you actually start looking at the situation of having to replace something like an IPS unit with all the disruption, and then see the ease with which Plastic Surgeon can sort it out, you don t realize just what a good option repair is over replacement. The site manager was amazed at the range of items that Plastic Surgeon could put right. - Hayley Gilmour, Project Quantity Surveyor, BAM Construction

Plastic Surgeon has materials and techniques which are not available to us, and can actually enable a repair to be carried out where replacement would otherwise be the only option. The standard of workmanship as well as service is very high. - Phil Wagget, Director, WFC Interiors and Refurbishment

In just four months, they have carried out 96 repairs, and repaired rather than replaced 31 items. We have saved three-quarters of a tonne of environmental waste and our average repair cost has dropped from 250 to under 30. Dawn Reynolds, Void Maintenance Manager, New Charter Housing Trust

To ensure consistent standards of customer care, the company operates a call centre in Devon, where all work requests are logged and allocated to regional teams, using bespoke computer systems designed and operated in-house. The company employs over 100 finishers in 7 regional 4

operations teams based throughout the UK. All finishers carrying out repairs are directly employed by Plastic Surgeon, not franchised. New finishers undergo rigorous technical and customer service training at head office, followed by further on-the-job training.

Plastic Surgeon s success has been determined by a strong commitment to customer care, staff training and rigorous quality systems. It has also invested heavily in technology, developing IT systems in-house, in order to deliver excellent customer service.

Customer case studies

Quartermile Development

Repairs to glass panels

The prestigious Quartermile Development is based in the heart of Edinburgh. Providing a new residential address for Scotland s capital, the development boasts a mix of luxury conversion and new build apartments, cafs and shops in a prime city centre location.

Gladedale Ventures Ltd was faced with a case of vandalism at the site, to a series of 4m x 2.5m plate glass panels. The damaged glass panels had very bad scratche across them, caused by someone s running a key or other sharp object along the glass. The deep scratches spanned across the full width of the glass on several panels.

Gladedale Ventures Ltd called in Plastic Surgeon, who decided that repair was a viable option. Plastic Surgeon s training enables finishers to assess both the glass type they are dealing with, the severity of the damage and the best approach to dealing with it.

Glass remains a fragile material, and in most instances the finisher will carry out a basic risk assessment regarding the best means of access; as well as of avoiding the risk of injury to others in the vicinity, through breakage or other accident.

Plastic Surgeon s health and safety policy would prevent a finisher ever repairing glass working from a ladder, while stepladders will only be used at very low level, a few feet above the ground. In all other instances the operative will erect purpose designed, quick to assemble scaffolding generally 5

carried in the vans, or organise other means of access such as a cherry picker in consultation with the client.

To carry out these repairs, the finisher used a variable speed precision grinder, able to rotate at velocities of up to 10,000 rpm, along with half a dozen different grades of abrasive disk. By varying the rate and roughness of the intervention, the finisher was able to remove the deep scratches in the glass. A key aspect of the skill involved in this first part of the glass repair process is to judge the size of the work area in order to feather out the repair. This avoids the creation of a dished effect or any other visual distortion.

The finisher then used finer and finer diamond pastes applied with a felt pad on the grinder, until the reflectance and polish of the surface matched the untouched glass on the surrounding areas. Plastic Surgeon s finisher successfully polished out all scratches saving the customer a bill of thousands of pounds in replacement costs.

Selfridges, Oxford Street

Repairs to footwear display stands

London s Oxford Street may be the location for some of the world s most exclusive retail properties. but for those who run the famous stores along its length, their focus is on Presentation, Presentation, Presentation which is why Plastic Surgeon was called upon to send in a team of its

finishers to repair a series of display stands for one of the biggest names in men s footwear.

Four finishers from Plastic Surgeon s South-east region were involved in restoring stands for the footwear brand within a Selfridges Men s Shoes department working from 9-00 pm one evening, into the early hours of the following morning.

Each of the very large stands featured ebony uprights where the black gel coat to the laminate material had been chipped or scratched; particularly around the corners. Then the tops, in an offwhite colour, had suffered splits and chips as well as having a series of screw holes detracting from their appearance.

In the first instance Plastic Surgeon s Area Manager and one of the specialist s senior finishers conducted a trial on one of the display stands in order to demonstrate the way in which the specialized repair techniques can conceal the damage. With the contractor and Selfridge s

management satisfied, the team of four finishers returned a couple of weeks later to carry out the work.

The finishers either removed or counter sunk any remaining screws then filled all of the holes in the horizontal and vertical surfaces using Plastic Surgeon s proprietary two-pack fillers. The repairs were rubbed down back to the original profile with particular care being needed for the corners using a graduation of abrasives. Finally the affected areas were colour matched and sprayed in using low pressure airbrushes to avoid setting off the store s very sensitive smoke alarms.

Hotel chain

Repairs to brickwork after rebranding

A contract undertaken for a leading hotel chain involved Plastic Surgeon carrying out brick repairs and brick tinting on half a dozen of their hotels around the country that were having new signs fitted as part of a rebranding exercise. Removing the original signs from the external facades had left scars and damaged the brick, and the bricks had become stained by moss and bird droppings.

At the first hotel to be tackled, Plastic Surgeon hired in a long reach cherry picker in order to access the high level of the repair area before operations could start. The work area actually took the form of a tower that stands atop the main building s flat roof, located some distance back from the parapet. This allowed the vicinity to be closed off without disrupting business for the hotel, and the finisher to employ more aggressive cleaning techniques than might otherwise have been possible.

Where the wall was very badly stained by moss and bird droppings, it was first treated with an acid wash before being pressure jetted to remove material adhered to the surface. The finisher then made good the old holes and any chips with the two-pack stone filler. Although the latter is colour matched using a blend of aggregates before it is applied, depending on the size and location of the repair it is sometimes also given a painted finish.

In addition, for those patches where the cleaning processes were not able to restore the masonry to its original appearance, Plastic Surgeon employed its renowned brick -tinting system to ensure the entire elevation had a unified appearance.

Bett Homes

Repairs to damaged stone

Oatlands is a large scale residential development in Glasgow, with construction programmed to run for more than five years. Plastic Surgeon was called in to look at a four storey apartment building which had already been occupied for 18 months.

Water cascading from blocked guttering had discoloured the reddish reconstituted stone masonry, and earlier attempts to rectify the staining had failed.

Two finishers working from full scaffolding applied Plastic Surgeon s own screed system. This firstly required all other areas such as windows, light fittings and down pipes to be masked off before the finishers used their skill to apply the material to bring the whole of the stonework to a uniform finish. Despite adverse weather conditions for several days, Plastic Surgeon completed the work within deadline and to the satisfaction of the apartment building s management.

The site agent for Bett Homes, Mr Paul Obyrne, comments: This was something we had to get right for the management company taking care of the apartments, and Plastic Surgeon of course did a very good job.

HM Belmarsh Prison - working for Interserve, Plastic Surgeon restored Perspex window panes across the whole site.

University of Leicester - working for Crittall Windows, Plastic Surgeon carried out specialist recoating of over 180 steel windows to precise factory finish standards.

New Asda store - recoated 70 steel external wall cladding panels which had dents and scratches to the powder coat finish. Exactly matched the colour specification to ASDA s corporate colours.

The Link 62 Data Centre a 250,000 project to re-finish wall cladding, requiring multiple finishers on shift work patterns for 7 days a week.

Environmental

According to the widely used waste hierarchy, recycling is only 4th on the list of priorities. The top priority is to eliminate waste, by not creating it in the first place. Plastic Surgeon s unique in-house designed customer facing VisibilITy reporting system helps to eliminate waste, by identifying and controlling the causes. By showing customers which items are most commonly damaged, which sites require the most repairs and why and where the damage is occurring.

Using VisibilITy, Plastic Surgeon s customers can carry out cost-analysis which, when cross referenced with their own material costs highlight the total savings. Once the additional labour costs involved in replacing a damaged item, along with the i evitable disruption on site, have been n factored in, the choice of repair over replacement can be easily made. The company s unique repair systems and specialist repair techniques help companies meet the second priority to reduce waste, by repairing damaged interior or exterior surfaces in-situ.

Thirdly, the company helps organisations to re-use as many items as possible with fine finishing systems that extend lifecycles. By repairing damaged items and reducing waste Plastic Surgeon helps companies achieve their targets for waste reduction, and provides hard data for reporting on Corporate Social Responsibility. It shows customers exactly how many tonnes of waste theyhave saved from landfill on every project, as well as the types of items repaired, the number of repairs and cost per repair.

In 2010, Plastic Surgeon saved its customers 1,750 tonnes of waste from landfill, by carrying out nearly 210,000 individual repairs to over 64,000 damaged items.

Waste in the skip is not all plastic Surgeon saves. There are also the resources that went into making each item not to mention the labour and transport at every stage before finally fitting it into the building. The upstream CO2 footprint of almost any product used by the building industry is pretty impressive.

Whether it is for the annual Corporate Social Responsibility report, the ISO14001 audit, or just because efficiency matters to business, Plastic Surgeon already saves its customers thousands of tonnes of waste and CO2 emissions, and can provide them with the data to prove it.

Photos taken before and after repairs by Plastic Surgeon

Damaged uPVC window

uPVC window after repair

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Stone damaged by removal of signage

Stone after repair

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Damaged worktop

Worktop after repair

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Damaged vanity unit

Vanity unit after repair

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One of Plastic Surgeon s fine finishers at work

Key facts 2010 Top 10 items repaired in 2010

Item Name Items Repaired No. Of individual Repairs Internal Door Window External Door Worktop Facia Cill 13,523 7,425 5,789 5,605 4,262 3,993 44,596 25,183 18,464 12,772 26,622 11,700

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Cupboard Cupboard Door Bath Stone Cill

3,476 2,895 2,774 2,693

8673 6,243 4,654 7,779

Total of 64,938 items repaired by Plastic Surgeon in 2010

208,221 individual repairs carried out

2010 saved 1,750 tonnes from landfill = 84,000 in landfill tax

For every 1 spent on repairs with Plastic Surgeon, you save 3 on material replacements (excluding labour costs)

The construction industry is responsible for 120 million tonnes of construction, demolition and excavation waste every year one third of all waste in the UK.* around

*http://www.wrap.org.uk/construction/halving_waste_to_landfill/index.html

www.plastic-surgeon.co.uk __________________________________________________________________________
About Plastic Surgeon: Plastic Surgeon is the UK s market leading expert in fine finishing and repair services, and the only nationwide provider. Established for over 20 years, the company was one of the founders of the fine finishing sector, now employing over 100 staff based at its headquarters in Devon and operating from seven regional centres throughout the UK.

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Plastic Surgeon can restore almost any damaged interior or exterior surface in commercial or residential buildings. Thanks to specialist training the company s finishers are expert in repairing and fine finishing practically any material including;

y y y y y y y y

Plastic and GRP repair Wood and veneer repairs Stone repair, brickwork repairs Ceramic repairs and enamel restoration Glass repair and glazing repairs Metallic and foil coated item repairs UPVC repairs and PVC window repairs Bath repair and shower tray repairs

Construction Industry Sectors: The company s commitment to a flawless finish means that some of the most respected names in the UK house building, construction and insurance sectors rely on them to get the job done. The company also provides specialist fine finishing and cosmetic repair services to many industry sectors including fit-out and retail, and social housing, as well as working with individual trades and homeowners.

Expert Repairs: The company prides itself on a very high standard of workmanship, providing a fine finish and virtually undetectable repairs that save customers thousands of pounds on expensive replacements.

Sustainable Solutions: Plastic Surgeon is committed to helping achieve sustainable construction and to minimising the impact on the environment. It prevented nearly 60,000 damaged items going to land fill waste last year by repairing rather than replacing them. The company also provides customers with a unique online reporting service which shows a wealth of statistics such as the number of items repaired per customer site an d the associated landfill savings.

Contact Details : Plastic Surgeon Limited Blue Waters House Pottery Road Bovey Tracey Devon TQ13 9DS T: 0845 141 0000 F: 0845 143 0000 E: enquiries@plastic-surgeon.co.uk

For media interviews or comments, please contact our PR agency: SMPR (Simply Marcomms Limited) Kirstie Colledge 0870 199 4044 Email: kirstie@simplymarcomms.co.uk

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