Nederman UK provides a fantastic bespoke solution for a motorcycle customer

Dust, gases, vapours and fumes at work can cause life-changing lung disease or make existing conditions worse. Nederman can provide the right products and solutions to protect your workers from work-related lung disease.

P&H Motorcycles grew from a garden shed business to one of the largest motorcycle ‘destinations’ in the South of England. In refurbishing and enlarging the new service facility from 3,000 to 4,000sq/ft, P&H Motorcycles instigated new methodologies and a central element to this refurbishment was the installation of fume extraction equipment from Nederman.

The busy service and repair centre of P&H Motorcycles has 14 workstations and prior to the refurbishment; P&H was using self-retracting hose-reel exhaust fume extraction. However, the old system had limitations. The self-retracting system would see vehicle technicians stretch the retractable hoses to the motorcycle exhausts, creating a potential trip hazard, it also required a variety of specialist nozzles to be fitted to the hose-end for each and every service to ensure efficient and safe extraction.

As Mr Paul Searle recalls: “I wanted to create an efficient service department that is well equipped and will give our customers confidence in our services. I studied working practices and identified a number of areas where we could improve, fume extraction was one area. With our previous set-up, technicians using extractable hose reels for fume extraction would have to fit a nozzle attachment to the retractable hose reel to ensure the extraction system would envelope the bike exhaust and effectively remove workplace fume. Motorcycles have a variety of exhaust shapes and this process could be exacerbated by the sometimes difficult to access to the exhaust, created by obstacles such as fairings. Fitting the appropriate nozzle could take up to 15 minutes and there is always a potential risk of damaging the vehicle exhaust. This excessive and laborious task would result in one of two things; firstly, workshop inefficiency and lost time. Secondly, staff would ignore the laborious process and bike exhaust fume would enter the workshop. The refurbishment was an opportunity to address the situation and luckily we found Nederman.”

The extraction solution

Nederman installed an overhead ALU rail with a high-volume extraction system above two rows of technician bays. Hanging from the rail are four self-supporting extraction arms. These arms can be lowered to a motorcycle and pushed above head height with ease, avoiding trip hazards and keeping with the state-of-the-art aesthetics of the new facility. The four arms can slide along the 20m long ceiling mounted rail to the relevant technician bay and once in position, a neoprene seal on the rail will lock the position of the arm whilst in operation. The ALU rail and the four arms are connected to a powerful centrifugal fan that extracts fume via ducting in the suspended ceiling and out of the building.

The result of the Nederman installation for the 40 employee multi-franchise motorcycle centre has been nothing short of remarkable. As Mr Searle continues: “The powerful Nederman system has extraction hoods that generate impressive suction levels. This means we no longer need to fit nozzles. With each of our ten technicians using the Nederman system 3-4 times a day, we have calculated that we are saving £10 to £15 in labour every time each technician turns on the Nederman system. This will give us an extremely rapid pay-back period of less than 12 months.”

“Furthermore, it is easy to use, staff want to use it and we have eliminated any trip hazard whilst improving the air quality and working conditions in our service and repair department. With our previous system, we frequently had hoses wearing or becoming susceptible to heat damage from exhaust fume whilst the springs in the retractable mechanical reels would often fail. Nederman has eliminated these issues with an effective, reliable and almost maintenance-free rail system that really looks elegant and is fitting of our new facility. We have hundreds of motorcycles through our service and repair department every week and the easy-to-use Nederman extraction system has streamlined operations for our technicians.”