Tully De’Ath is a leading multi-disciplinary engineering practice in the South East, providing leading edge services in civil, structural, infrastructure, water and railway disciplines.

Currently, the practice has an annual portfolio of over 90 projects with a total contract value exceeding £250m. Like any major engineering practice, Tully De’Ath is constantly assessing potential suppliers and possible solutions to a whole range of construction challenges. One company though that is consistently held in high regard is Schöck Ltd, the European market leader in thermal break technology.

There are a number of criteria for this, but the leading contenders seem to be the unique range of construction solutions available, concrete-to-concrete, concrete-to-steel and steel-to-steel. A range that is available as bespoke solutions, or from standard; all combined with a helpful partnering approach from the Schöck technical team. Dan Chisholm, Senior Structural Engineer at Tully De’Ath, deals with Schöck on a regular basis and has his own views as to why the relationship has developed so positively.

“What I like about them is that they are prepared to give it a go. We can’t keep going back to our client saying, that’s a bit tricky. Schöck always try to make it work and it can be the case that my ideas, combined with their ideas, often result in a third solution. Construction drawings are clear and fully designed elements with calculations help to give confidence."

Dan continues: “With connectivity issues involving thermal break modules, we can obviously work out the various forces on the units, but there are so many variables in a structure it is good to have back up that you can rely on."

There is the up-front design time investment too that has contributed to the goodwill generated by Schöck. As Dan explains; “From a pre-appointment design point of view, a lot of suppliers are reticent to provide a full design service until the order is actually placed. We can sympathise with that, but when a company is prepared to put on that bit extra, it obviously makes a difference."