Jospeh Rank House Harlow wasn't a tall order for Dempsey Dyer
Posted on 10/09/2012
Joseph Rank House is the tallest building in Harlow. It has just been converted from offices to ground floor retail units with 132 one and two bed apartments above. Its 506 windows alone would make it a daunting prospect for many fabricators, but that wasn’t the only challenge the contractor would face. Add in a mechanical ventilation system that would have an impact on the product sourcing, a confined town centre location that would add complications to the fitting process and a tight schedule and you had a job that only the most experienced fabricator could take on.
Luckily, Deceuninck fabricator Dempsey Dyer was more than up to the job. The company proved its worth right from the start of the project too. The original specification was for aluminium windows because of their sleek aesthetics. But Dempsey Dyer was able to demonstrate that it could supply PVCu windows that would more than meet the aesthetic requirements and also make cost savings. The chosen windows were manufactured from Deceuninck 3000 Series and all 506 tilt and turn windows were coating using the unique decoroc system in RAL 5008 Blue/Grey.
But the requirements of the job didn’t stop there. The building’s mechanical ventilation system meant that Dempsey Dyer needed to source louvres and adapt every frame to include them. Martyn Wright of Dempsey Dyer said, “One of the things that made the Joseph Rank House project so exciting was the need to source solutions that met the building’s unique requirements. We worked closely with Deceuninck to ensure that the end result exceeded the client’s expectations.”
The building’s renovation and conversion was scheduled to take just a year from start to finish. Achieving that timescale required impeccable attention to detail from everyone involved. Dempsey Dyer had anything up to three fitting teams working on the project at any one time for a period of nearly nine months. Thanks to the intense planning of all contractors working on the site, the project was finished on time and within budget.
In spite – or perhaps because of – the demands of the project, everyone at Dempsey Dyer is proud of the end result. Martyn said, “Joseph Rank House is an iconic building in Harlow. It’s great to think that every time someone catches a glimpse of it, they are looking at our work.”
