Office Toilet Refurbishment for South West Water - Case Study

South West Water is a major water utilities company with its head office in Exeter, Devon. They required a full office toilet refurbishment for two high profile office washrooms, and a standalone washroom located in the building's reception.

Together with our sister company Lan Services we undertook a complete re-design of the male washroom layout to make room for new shower facilities.

The solid surface vanity tops are easy to clean and maintain as the shape is smooth, with no lips, grooves, or recesses. Since the sinks are also ‘built-in’ there are also no mastic lines either.  The look and style of the material (solid surface) also suited the high-end brief.

Concealed Pipework

Throughout the male and female washrooms, duct sets concealed all the plumbing and electrics. The other plain walls were covered in Altro Whiterock wall cladding. Affixed over existing wall tiles to minimise building work and costs. Also, ensuring works could be completed swiftly.

All the office toilets were fitted with sensor-controlled fixtures and fittings. Such as sensor toilet and urinal flush controls, and Dart Valley Systems A45 sensor taps, and Dart Valley Systems sensor operated soap dispensers.

Vinyl floor was laid throughout, with the Altro Whiterock overlapping the vinyl flooring to create a tanked floor and wall surface.

As is now common in many washroom refurbishments this office toilet refurbishment included energy-saving lighting. A suspended ceiling now houses PIR controlled LED lighting. Ensuring the lights are only on when necessary and use less energy than traditional bulbs or strip lighting.

The ladies' office toilet only called for a like for like replacement on all the fixtures and fittings. So the same number of cubicles, toilets, and sinks went back in as came out. Including replacement of the ladies shower, with shower/changing seat.

The only exception to this was that obviously the items put back in were new and of a higher quality than those removed. Including wall hung toilet pans (in both washrooms), which lift the toilet pans off the floor and enable the entire floor of the office washrooms to be cleaned.

Remodelling to your requirements

The gents' toilets required remodelling to enable the provision of shower facilities. Prior to the office washroom refurbishment, there were no showers. However the client wished to promote the cycle to work scheme, but this required shower facilities to be provided for the male employees. With the remodel we were able to fit in 4 new shower cubicles with a small changing area.

In order to fit private showers space was reclaimed from an unused first aid room and a boiler room. The business already had alternative provision within the building for the first aid room so the partition wall was removed to create more room in the washroom.

The existing hot water system was replaced by two under counter heaters. The under-counter heaters need only provide hot water for the washrooms and so are more than up to the task.

Within the lobby, there was also a unisex washroom, within which we replaced the sanitary ware and fixtures to match or complement the main office toilets. Due to space constraints, the sink fitted in the standalone washroom had to be smaller.

This in turn meant that the sensor tap installed within this washroom was a battery and not mains powered too. As there was no space for a mains controller and solenoid below the sink. So a Delabie battery-powered sensor tap was installed.