Following the devastating earthquake in Christchurch on the southern island of New Zealand, Colemans were approached by New Zealand’s largest demolition contractor, Nikau.
Initially, Nikau CEO Joh Stihl approached Mark Coleman (our MD at the time) to talk about the sale of what was then the UK’s largest high reach demolition rig. After a period of negotiation, John and Mark built up a relationship which led to Colemans offering consultancy to help safely deconstruct a number of buildings that had been seriously compromised by earthquake damage.
Given the specialist nature of the equipment, Nikau needed to develop a knowledge and understanding of its capabilities. And given the damage caused by the earthquake, they needed to do it quickly.
Mark Coleman and his team quickly found themselves in New Zealand, working with Nikau and their clients to provide consultancy services and assist in critical work delivering solutions to seriously compromised earthquake-damaged buildings. All with a collective goal of making the city of Christchurch safe and getting it back to some form of normality.
Colemans designed and developed a number of safe methodologies to ensure that the work could be carried out efficiently, including the deconstruction of the Bank of New Zealand PWC buildings.
The PWC building used a design that Nikau and Colemans developed together, including asbestos removal, soft strip, wire sawing and deconstruction with huge cranes which then give way to the Liebherr 984 65m high reach. At the time, it was the tallest building to be demolished in the Southern Hemisphere.