A great deal of time and effort was expended ensuring the equipment had some accuracy. This little mishap resulted in what should have been a traverse per floor turning into eight, 136 in total all of which had to be final scanned. Rumour had it Roger had taken shares out with the people who make bungs.

Our next obstacle was the dreaded secondary air; 1,751 grilles, again, all very easy as 90% of the floor served only two grilles read & record only. As always, we hit the common obstruction - “the installation”. I’ve seen some poor installations in my time, but this was something else. Bish, a former duct fitter by trade, was aghast at the shoddy workmanship left behind by his fellow tradesmen.

A common calling around site was often heard when duct fitter was around, “mind the gap” although at times we would find a stray member of the London Underground shouting back “stand behind the yellow line”.

Time and time again we asked for the situation to be dealt with, and time and time again it was never done. That is, until we mentioned the effect it would have on the “buildings energy consumption” (not having a clue as to what the effect would be) but it sounded good, especially after we explained that to achieve design volumes we would have to re-tap every Fcu losses.

Once we dropped this little number, rest assured, Clarke & Fen had the entire building wrapped up in under 4 days. “Nice one brother”. Then came numerous amounts of poorly planned and designed systems which meant Ashford having to recalculate alternative designs and come up with practical solutions for just about every system.

All in all, Dashwood House proved to be a great job but somewhat frustrating and expensive. Having to spend all our hard earned cash on numerous amounts of 3mm Allen keys, 1 angle grinder and 6 blades, as the ceiling was sitting on top of the valves but with careful planning, the team involved had time to learn, gain confidence and advance in areas that some projects don’t allow time for.

Big Shouts to: JJ, Dolph, Bish, Buffy, Ed the “crossword kid” and Mr Richards for his love of porridge & the health & safety file.

Vinney