Category: Uncategorised

This one caught my eye as a thoughtful resinstatement carried out last week, matching the new concrete to its surroundings. It is unavoidable that we dig on your property so that we can access your pipe. But we do try to make our excavations as neat as we can, and we put everything we dig out in buckets while we’re  working so that we keep the amount of mess we make and the contamination of the surrounding areas to a minimum.

We have undertaken our annual health and safety audit with SafeContractor and have successfully completed the process again.  This tells you, the paying customer, that we are responsible in our attitude to both our and your safety, that we are keenly aware of the risks involved in the work we undertake and do all we can to minimise those risks, and that our engineers are trained and competent in all they do.

R&D engineers have been working with Kier and South West Water in the North Devon area now for over two years. You may have seen some of our familiar red vans working on the mains infrastructure in the roads around the area.This work is highly skilled and is commissioned by South West Water and managed and overseen by Kier. South West Water, in their drive to provide top-notch customer service, are asking all of us, whether sub-contract or not, to work out of South West Water liveried vans, and to work in South West Water uniform. We agree that this makes the service much more seamless to the customer and it is less confusing as to who is responsible for the
works being undertaken. R&D is proud to be able to count ourselves among the number who keep our water supplies clean and serviced, and we have taken the opportunity to upgrade all of our vans while changing the livery. While you may not see our red vans working in the highways and byways on the mains any longer, our engineers will still be there among all the others. And our engineers who work on the private supplies will still be in our distinctive red vans across Devon and Cornwall so give us a toot if you see us.

Back in the middle of 2018 we ordered new vans for all our engineers in the same red as previously but with a different fleet provider – Western Truck Rental who are based in North Devon (Barnstaple and Tiverton).  They’ve been absolutely brilliant and they give really good customer service so we can highly recommend them to anyone looking for vehicle hire.

To go with our new vans and with an eye to staying within safe weight limits on the road we have also upgraded the equipment our engineers carry, with lightweight racking, lighter compressors and a number of other changes with which Western Truck Rental have helped us.  We’re only as good as the last job we complete and the engineers are very good at what they do – its only fair that they should have the best we can provide so that we can get the work done without having to worry about equipment failures.

R&D is proud to have met the standards required to be accredited with Constructionline. This is a long-established scheme which was developed originally as a government initiative to try and provide a benchmark for those who work in the construction industry, so that those who are purchasing can be assured of a baseline of standards before contracting someone to work for them. This is over and above our current health and safety accreditations, which have contributed to this particular scheme but do not provide the whole picture. We have had to prove not just the safety of but also the integrity of our business in order to be accredited successfully. What that means for our customers is peace of mind and guaranteed standards delivered, and from a local, family-owned business.

We recently received the following email from a very happy customer.

“Can I just say a huge thank you to all of your team who were involved in sorting out my leak.

Within two days from the initial contact, Russell and Julia came out to look at the leak.  That same day, the job was booked in for repair – very promptly, the following week.

The guys have just been today to repair the leak, and to say that I am over the moon with what they have done would be an understatement.

Within 45 mins the leak was located, repaired and the garden put back to normal.  Thanks guys.

I would not hesitate to recommend your company to anyone who has a water leak.  Your professionalism from start to finish was second to none.

Best wishes”

Tracy Copleston

Thank you, Tracy, for your kind message.

R&D have upgraded our fleet of vans and are now running new red Ford Transits. Our fleet is sign-written and our engineers all carry ID cards and wear a uniform so if it doesn’t say R&D on it somewhere it’s not us.  Accept no imitations.  Give us a toot if you see us around.

R&D has just re-accredited with both SafeContractor, which now trades as Alcumus, and Chas.  Both of these systems tell you, the customer, that we take not only our own health and safety very seriously but yours too and the health and safety of any general public around whom we are working.  There are a lot of horror stories around about “health and safety gone mad”, such as the banning of games of conkers in the playground, park benches being too low, Christmas decorations being banned, and most, if not all of these, refer to instances of bad practice disguised as regulation and law.  We believe that health and safety is vitally important and we aim to reflect that every day in our working practices. When implemented sensibly, health and safety does just what it says on the tin. Conkers?  Don’t mind if I do.

R&D carries out much of the water supply pipe renewal we do by moling under the surface (see video on ‘Moling’ under the Our Services tab on the website).  We have invested in the last few months in new moles and new compressors and the beauty of our new compressors is that they are portable – certainly more portable than the big old beasts that have lived on our vans for the last 10-12 years.  We’ve never had a problem with the old compressors , bless ‘em, but it took a good few of us to lift them in and out of the vans when necessary, so they tended to lurk in the back of the van and chunter away, making it difficult sometimes for our engineers to get close to the job.  The new compressors are smaller and can be lifted off the van and wheeled for a reasonable distance, enabling us to mole more easily in places that the van can’t get to, which in Devon and Cornwall is quite a consideration.  This means that we can carry out our work more easily, more quickly and with fewer hoses trailing across working areas, gardens, footways etc.