At Hoare Laboratory Engineering we believe in providing the right solution backed up by cost-effective pricing and a high level of customer service.
We are a long term solution. Established in 1928 we are very much a family business with the third generation of the Hoare family now heading the company. We still believe in the traditional values of good customer service, a personal, friendly and flexible approach, and honesty and integrity in all our dealings. We also believe in providing a totally professional and business like approach in all that we do. We want customers to feel good about their experience of working with Hoare and for them to want to come back for more !
“Providing the right solution” – what does that mean ? It means that what we will do is provide you with a solution that meets your requirements not ours. What we won’t do is try to sell you something just because it’s what we manufacture or what we currently have in stock or what a supplier agreement limits us to sell to you. If we can’t match your requirements exactly we will tell you so and if we can’t match your requirements at all we will tell you this as well. We won’t jeopardise a long term relationship for a short term sale.
We also believe in openness and transparency. We will provide full, detailed and accurate information in the form of itemised Scopes of Work, Bills of Quantities, CAD drawings, delivery periods and lead times, installation programmes, and details of works we have excluded or have assumed are by others. We won’t try to mislead or ‘hide’ things to gain a false advantage. We will even highlight any areas that are vital to the success of a project even if it’s of no commercial value to us. Laboratory fit-outs can be a complex business and the right time to discover any errors, omissions or anomalies is at the design and planning stage – not when the goods are delivered to site.
Hoare Laboratory Engineering LTD
We are an ISO 9001 registered company.
Our laboratory installations and any products we supply comply with current legislation, recommendations, regulations, Codes of Practice and Standards.
Our extensive experience of laboratory installations means that we can advise on what works best for a particular situation. We can help you avoid the pitfalls that can arise and that others may not have encountered.
Against a similar specification we are confident that our prices are highly competitive. If we can see a way of achieving a similar but better result we will offer an alternative specification – this may mean that our price is slightly higher than competitors but likewise our specifications will be too.
We take pride in providing our customers with a laboratory design and installation that delivers what they need and continues to do so. We pay close attention to your needs, provide dedicated supervision of your project and an after-sales service that is second to none, which only a longstanding family firm such as Hoare Laboratory Engineering can provide.
The company has been synonymous with quality laboratory installations for many years, originally being founded by the late Alfred Robert Hoare in 1928. Since that time it has evolved and developed through three generations of the Hoare family into one of the market leaders in the UK.
Alfred was trained as a plumber and having achieved the status of Master Plumber went on to form the company A.R. Hoare in 1928. The company traded as plumbers and lead burners (skills Alfred had acquired during his apprenticeship) and operated from Dulwich in South East London.
As one of the only listed lead burners around Alfred was never short of work, installing and plumbing-in laboratories. As time went on he worked for most of the leading laboratory companies in Britain, adding to his knowledge and understanding of the business.
The company was quick to respond to these changes and with the Hoare name growing in stature it began to supplement its skills in plastic waste drainage systems and fume extraction systems, enabling it to supply and install the whole range of laboratory furniture and equipment.
In the early 1950s Alfred’s only son Tony joined the company. At that time there were very few fume extract sytems but these, and fume cupboards, soon became his speciality. PVC was coming into vogue which, together with the new glass fibres available, meant the company was able to offer a complete laboratory installation service using all the latest materials. Around the same time the company started to manufacture fume-cupboards in-house and furniture was manufactured to Hoare specifications by other companies.
By 1960 the company had moved on significantly and now had the skills to weld plastic in sheet form, which opened up a number of opportunites as this process was used in a wide variety of applications including troughs, tanks and bench tops. Hoare gained work within the schools sector and was subsequently invited to work at a number of leading university centres, a number of which the company still has contracts with today.
In 1965 Alfred retired and Tony took over the running of the business. In the late 1960s the company concentrated its efforts on working with fibreglass and PVC to further improve extraction systems for fume cupboards. Following the introduction of the Health & Safety at Work Act in 1974 Tony’s expertise was called upon to help establish the fume cupboard standards for the industry and he made a significant contribution to Part 2 of the new BS7258 standard.
In the early 1980s the company developed it’s own range of laboratory furniture and soon the company was employing designers to work alongside the plastic fabricators, glass fibre moulders, plumbers and electricians. Tony’s eldest son Mark joined the business in this period, soon followed by brothers Andy, Graham and Nick.
In the mid eighties the company had a change of direction. Market conditions had changed and as a consequence Hoare ceased production of its own furniture and teamed up with Holland’s leading laboratory furniture manufacturer. It also took the opportunity to relocate premises to Kent, and changed its name to Hoare Laboratory Engineering Limited.
