CEI Services Flood Restoration

As Summer sets in the CEI Services team have been incredibly busy up and down the country on a diverse range of works including grounds maintenance, industrial painting, graffiti removal & the application of anti graffiti coatings (more of which you can read about shortly on our new and improved dedicated graffiti removal page within our website - www.ceiservices.co.uk), relaying broken flagstones and paving, we've even turned our hand to commercial window cleaning since our last post - with the usual fantastic results!

However, sadly, CEI Services have been involved in more flood restoration works. Regular readers will know the lengths CEI went to, to try and help with the floods which caused devastation to our neighbours and local communities. During this experience our team learnt a lot about providing this service in a cost effective, efficient manner. As part of our role, providing facilities management for Evonik Goldschmidt, we were called into action once again. A burst water main had flooded their offices and labs - ruining all the carpet tiles and causing a lot of disruption to the Evonik staff. CEI managed to clear out all contaminated items, decontaminate and dry all affected surfaces within a few days - no mean feat! We then set about laying new carpet tiles throughout the main building, a job which we always enjoy. So, a thousand or 2 carpet tiles later and all was back to normal. Phew!

The last couple of months have really highlighted the wide range of environmental services CEI can, and do, provide. We offer commercial and domestic customers unrivalled levels of customer service and satisfaction. And we don't charge anything for a site survey or quotation so if your considering improvements to your property why not give CEI  a call!!!

A Bright Start To The New Year

The sun has been shining and the cold snowy Winter the CEI Services team endured is now long forgotten (we hope!). We managed to lose only a couple of days due to bad weather this year compared to 10 last January alone so we are very happy with that improvement!

We didn't make a big deal of it but March 14th saw CEI celebrate our 3rd birthday! We have made fantastic progress in a relatively short time and the success of our sub depot in Birmingham is testiment to that. We have long term facilities management contracts in place with industry giants both in the Midlands and Cumbria and we have a fantastic relationship with what is, in our opinion, one of the most innovative and exciting companies working in the world today! But unfortunately we can't say much more about that one!

Our website - www.ceiservices.co.uk is being slowly updated and rejigged to make it more interactive and user friendly. Any thoughts, comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated! We are great at cleaning, maintenance and improvements but only amateurs at web design so please stick with us!

We have recently introduced a new service to our range. "Back to Black" is our revolutionary cost effective way of restoring your tarmac driveways, car parks and pathways back to their former glory. We can clean, repair and then paint on our special coating and bring your dull tarmac surfaces back to life! If you'd like to find out more about this service then please visit our website and drop us an email or fill out our feedback form, we will get back to you asap!

Busy Start to 2011

We can hardly believe it has been almost 2 months since the last CEI update. The whole CEI team enjoyed an uninterupted Xmas and NY break and came back at the start of January feeling thoroughly refreshed, if a little overweight!!!

We are pleased to say that so far in 2011 we have completed jobs as diverse as laying carpet tiles, paint stripping, building cleaning, pot hole repairs, groundworks, erecting 15 foot signs (don't ask!), gritting public pathways, pressure cleaning of public areas in our local town, replacing roof felt, re - laying factory floors, replacing hundreds of light bulbs at a very scary height, and as is sometimes the case - a lot of secret work we can't really detail here!

With the budget cuts now coming into effect and many people starting to feel the pinch, not least local and borough councils, CEI Services have stepped up our message. We believe we can save councils money on their current suppliers, we also believe we can get more done for the money and are willing to prove this given a chance! We also believe we have an innovative new revenue stream for councils which involves them doing absolutely nothing, is completely safe and can quite literally earn them "money for nothing". I have contacted every Cumbria authority to try and engage in discussions regarding our ideas but so far to no avail! Hopefully the idea of free money isn't something they can refuse to listen to for too much longer!

CEI are now providing facilities management services to some fantastic UK industry giants. We are pleased to announce our long term working relationships with:

CEI Services are able to offer our own extensive range of professional cleaning, maintenance and improvement services combined with the skills of our reliable network of local contractors to provide commercial customers with a complete facilities management package. This type of arrangement means your business has a one stop shop for all issues. A reliable company who are happy make all neccessary arrangements for any work you may require. We ensure you receive the best value for money, outstanding customer service and we guarantee all end results!

A quick mention to a website which is proving to be useful to CEI Services and many other business throughout the UK - www.freeindex.co.uk it enables commercial and domestic customers to place a description of the work they require, where they live etc. Local and reputable tradespeople can then respond and the client can pick and choose using company reviews, links to company wesbites etc to help them make the decision. A great idea and I am pleased to say CEI Services have some fantastic reviews on there already!

Finally, to help our valued domestic customers this year we are offering a 20% discount on the last cleaning work we completed for you. So if you had your driveway cleaned and restored 2 years ago for £495, this year that same work is only going to cost you £395. We wish we didn't have to charge you at all, but hopefully our offer will make it that bit easier to consider spending the money on keeping your property looking great!

Please do keep emailing us with comments, feedback, queries etc! Along with our website www.ceiservices.co.uk you can follow CEI Services on Twitter and Facebook!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

So...the mince pies are baked, the turkey is ordered, the tree is well and truly up! But CEI Services still haven't stopped working! It's amazing the things you can do in the snow and ice! This was our team last week down in the Midlands working at height at Atotech. They are so pleased with the way we went about our work, and the end results that we hope to secure a long term maintenance contract early in the new year!

As I write our Cumbrian team are hard at work on some groundworks in Workington. Back at the office were eating mince pies, it's even possible some sherry might come out later on! But don't worry we will save some for the workers when they eventually get back!

CEI officially breaks up on Thursday lunchtime but our valued customers know they can depend on us anytime of the day or night so we won't be surprised if we are called out for something or other over the next week or so!

We carried out a fantastic cleaning job in Trafalgar Square, London, a couple of weeks ago. Working there in the dead of night by floodlight was an experience and thankfully it couldn't have gone any better!

We believe our head office is based in the most beautiful county in the UK. On a recent CEI Services afternoon stroll around Buttermere one of our avid photographers captured the image below. How beautiful!!

So until 2011 all that is left to do is wish all our friends, customers, online visitors, suppliers and families a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful and prosperous New Year!!!

Cockermouth & A Quick Update

It has been another busy week for CEI Services up and down the country and the next few weeks promise more of the same. This week we have been working hard to complete a large cleaning, restoration and painting job in Ireby, Cumbria.

A truly amazing location with stunning views. Unfortunately in Cumbria, in December, open views = COLD & WINDY! So a big thanks to our team who continue to do an amazing job up there despite returning home freezing most days! Almost done and what a tremendous difference. Stay tuned to see some great photos and a full case study of the job will be up on the website within a couple of weeks!!!

We have read with interest an article about Cockermouth in the Guardian today. You can read the article in full by following the link below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/19/cockermouth-floods-one-year-on

It's great to see this type of report in the national press and it backs up what we have said about Cumbria's resourcefulness and resilience! Buy your bags now!

CEI Services have this week secured a facilities management contract up in Cumbria which we are very proud of and a large contract at an equally large factory and office block in the West Midlands. Great news!

Theres a small addition to the Portfolio of Work section of the website this week and much more to follow in the near future!

Finally, if you want to catch a glimpse of the CEI team hard at work then next week head to Trafalgar Square on Thursday....We've got something interesting going on! But thats all were saying! Have a great weekend!

Old Red Sandstone

Well it's Friday again and nearly the end of another month, bringing us closer to the impending festive activities and colder, much colder, weather. Here in Cumbria we are starting to drop below freezing at night and our staff have begun wearing their long johns underneath their waterproofs again (they might not admit it but we know they do!). Down in the Midlands at our sub depot we hear the suns still shining brightly and our Midlands Operations Manager Lee is having a great time! I might put in for a transfer!!

Thankfully we havent lost a single days work due to weather yet. Fingers crossed for more of the same as we have been busy on all fronts over the past 4 weeks. After removing, restoring and refitting some 300 year old sandstone flagstones from a beautiful property in ST Bees, Cumbria, we received the following feedback from the customer:

"I cant thank Chris and his team enough, the service was proffesional and friendly and i was talked through the job at every stage. I had been so undecided what to do with my dining room floor after removing concrete only to discover 300 year old sand flagstones. I had several builders look at the job but most were reluctant to take it on, in case the stone was damaged on lifting and cleaning. Chris and his team didnt hesitate and the completed job was done in three days with minimal damage and my original stone floor is the envy of my neighbours and friends who are also delighted that such a fantatic original feature has been restored. I also want to thank Adele for making sure my house was fit to move into after months of building work, she worked like a trogen and my house was spotless to move into. C.E.I services are superb and they deserve lots of success in the future. Thank you"

You can see more photos and read all about what was involved in the restoration of this beautiful old material by visiting the Portfolio Of Work section at www.ceiservices.co.uk.

CEI Services have just begun the restoration, pressure cleaning and repointing of a stunning red sandstone cottage in Ireby, Cumbria. Our results here should be equally fantastic so please keep checking back to see how the job progresses. Along with the cleaning of the property we are also preparing and painting the fascias, repairing the sturdy oak door and making good the perimiter stone walls which are on the verge of collapse after many years of exposure to the Cumbrian weather, which I mentioned earlier in this post!

In the Midlands we have 2 extremely exciting projects in the negotiation stage which could really see us make our mark down their and establish our reputation as one of the UK's leading professional cleaning and property maintenance companies. Fingers crossed but hush hush for now!!!

As well as the external cleaning and maintenance services we provide we now have a healthy customer bases of provate landlords and nationwide letting agencies such as Belvoir to whom we also provide internal cleaning services. Please feel free to contact us anytime regarding all types of cleaning and property maintenance, we are sure we can help!!! Visit www.ceiservices.co.uk for further information on our range of services.

And finally, because it's Friday and we all love the weekend, we thought we would provide you with a little video to prove just how amazing nature can be! If you've never heard or seen the contents of this video then enjoy and be prepared to be amazed!

On behalf of everyone at CEI Services, pressure cleaning specialists, property maintenance experts; have a fantastic weekend!!!

Email To Councils

Below is an email we sent to around 10 local authorities around Northern England to see if we can try to work together on a simple sign cleaning project which would be beneficial to both the councils and the general public. We will wait and see if any of them decide to respond!! If previous efforts to engage them in constructive conversation is anything to go by I doubt we will even get a polite declining email. We will keep you posted!

Please follow the links below to some articles regarding the state of the road signs in our country. I have attached some photos of signs in Cockermouth, our hometown which we took it upon ourselves to clean because they looked so disgusting.

http://travel.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=151597822

http://www.thewellingtonnews.co.uk/content/new-team-targets-thousands-dirty-and-damaged-road-signs?page=1

Aside from the way filthy, unkept or vandalised road signs reflect badly on our villages, towns and cities, they also pose a serious hazard. Drivers straining to read what a sign says because of the dirt, or unable to read it because of overhanging trees, can and has caused accidents. Surely these 2 reasons alone are enough to make you sit up and want to do something about this issue? Add to this the fact that maintaining the signs themselves in the short term will save you money in the long term and I hope you will be willing to at least consider the contents of the rest of this email?

CEI Services work throughout Cumbria and Northern England in towns, villages and cities so we are able to see that this is a common problem, not just in our hometowns but throughout the country. We would like to help and we realise that this type of spending isn't top priority for councils at the moment however it is vital to retain good standards, even during tough economic times. Tourism, local pride and the safety of the general public are all at stake.

We believe we can work with you to set up reporting systems to log damaged, dirty, vandalised or unreadable signs anywhere in the North of England but particularly in and around Cumbria. We also believe we can work with minimal budgets to ensure these issues are addressed and rectified in a timely and efficient manner as we go about our regular work schedule. We are open to negotiations with regards to how this arrangement could work but we are sure it could be mutually beneficial and most importantly be extremely beneficial to the general public!!!

Graffiti removal & anti graffiti coatings
Pressure cleaning - removal of dirt, traffic film, algae, grime, stains etc
Trimming back tress, hedges, bushes etc which can block signs from view
Repairs - Tightening, straightening etc

These are the main issues with our road signs wherever they may be. Councils do not have the time to deal with this issue properly, that is clear for all to see, so why not let us take care of the issue at a cost that suits us both in a manner that also suits us both.

As a company we have many innovative ideas for councils to save money and to generate revenue but despite numerous letters, emails and phone calls to authorities throughout the North no one seems willing to listen. I hope that you can find a few minutes to engage me regarding this email and how we can improve our local areas together in a cost effective fashion.