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A Short Story about Grout Removal

Late on Friday afternoon, (10th July 2015) our office received a phone call to ask for our Grout Removal services as grout needed to be removed as some had over poured into some small steel pockets.

We asked the engineer to send us some pictures to explain what he required. We called a short team meeting, looked at the pictures, and offered a price for one day to attend site to see if it was possible. The site was 400 miles away from our yard – a day to get there, a day to get back.

The Next Problem – Paperwork!

We had never worked for this company before, so their procurement team was tasked to fast track our paperwork. This included; insurance documents, training certificates, ISO registration documents, risk assessment, method statement, VAT number, company number. Even questionnaires on our previous history – had we had any accidents, had we been prosecuted by the Health and Safety, did we have X , Y and Z policies in place, not to mention many more questions and document requests.

By 6.00pm on Friday evening our paperwork was complete, our van loaded for a 5.00am start the following Monday morning.  After a 12 hour journey, our men arrived on site and were able to receive their site induction and look at the job.

That night they called back to the office and explained the problems and the difficulty in the job, only to explain another jetting company had been in for a week and had made no headway with the grout removal. Maybe some parts would need sending by express courier, however they would see the next day what they could do.

All of our equipment has GPS trackers fitted, and can be monitored via a web page. The office could see the machine was up and running early on the Tuesday, but no phone call back to the office what was happening. By lunch time pictures started to appear on the office iPad “photo stream” and a message ” we have cleared 5 holes , only another 23 to do “

By the end of the Tuesday shift 15 holes were complete. More pictures came down on the photo stream on the Wednesday and by 4.45pm a couple of emails landed on my desk from the client.

Customer Response

“Thank you for bailing us out at such short notice, especially after another company had failed.
The two guys that came were very experienced in their field, they had one intention and that was to succeed where others had failed. Very professional, nothing was too much trouble very polite a pleasure to have on site.Thank you very much will not hesitate to use you again.” – General Foreman

“I am compelled to write to you and commend your company for the swift mobilisation and speedy execution of the works . The guys really went the extra mile to have tools fabricated to suit the very awkward access issues, the service was second to none and they carried out their duties in a professional and helpful manner. Hopefully we won’t need your services again on this project, but you are top of list if we do! Thank you” – Engineering Manager

At Hydroblast we get straight to the point and if we see a problem we will try work at our absolute hardest to find a solution. We do our job, we charge our rates, we do our best and it is nice to see in this case going that extra mile has been appreciated by the client.

The name of the company has been withheld, but for those companies wanting to work with us and want to see the reference, we are happy to supply.

I am happy to say this work was executed in a very timely manner by our staff Ashton and Robert.

Well Done Team!