The company was established by our current MDs father – Ken Malin. The first two years were taken up with small cleaning works using steam cleaners and a 4000psi drain cleaning unit.

Some hydro blasting works were undertaken at BIP, Albright and Wilson, Dunlop and Holden Surface Coating. Ken set up on his own after working for Neolith, based in Rugby. He continued his working relationship with them by hiring their machines.

Our current MD – David Malin joined the business and contributed to further expansion with addition of two Hughes jetting units, giving a major pressure increase by being able to work at 10,000psi.

The increased popularity of hydrodemolition, started the new era for water jetting contractors. The company began removing concrete using high pressure water jetting and started to move away from hired equipment onto purchasing their own. This is when a Hughes 12 500psi was purchased with two more following couple of years later.

During this time David Malin saw that due to size of projects and remote location of numerous sites, a combined water jetting and large water carrying vehicle was the future. The first tanker unit followed – a 1976 Leyland Clydesdale.

It wasn’t long until the tanker units became the company’s pillars with fleet expanding to the present six.

Tracie Malin, our Finance Director joined Sabre and quickly transformed the efficiency of the company’s accounting. Following shortly the company joined the Water Jetting Association and David’s transition to take over of the business as Managing Director.

During this time KAMAT K1300 pumps were introduced to provide better reliability than ones previously used. Eventually in 1999, the first Hammelman pumps were purchased and installed onto Mercedes box vans. These pumps form the backbone of the Sabre fleet.

The company was recognised for its commitment to people by achieving Investors in People standard back in 2005 to then progress and continue to work at Silver status since 2014. That did not stop us to aim for further recognition and since 2007 we have been working against CHAS, Constructionline and ISO Standards. With all three ISO standards being achieved in 2017 – ISO9000, ISO 4500 and ISO1800.

Sabre moved its operations from Tyseley to West Heath into larger and bespoke premises. Our continuously expanding fleet and equipment, allows us to provide reliable and high-quality service to all our customers. We are proud that many members of our team have been with us for over 15 or some even 20 years – Richard, Darren, Paul, George and Wayne.

In March 2021, Sabre was promoted from Silver to Gold status by the Investors in People recognition scheme – a unique achievement in its specialism.

In Sept 2021 Sabre won the CN Awards Training Excellence. Applauding the winner, the CN Awards judges said: “Sabre has gone beyond all expectations. It has developed a training and development programme for a niche sector where none existed before.” The judges added that Sabre’s “care and support for staff of all educational skills has been outstanding” and that the company has “achieved external accreditation beyond what would be expected”.

Sabre is looking forward to continuing in its hydro-demolition journey & is supporting several of our clients on HS2 & Commonwealth Games projects. We will also be exploring new avenues within our Training Excellence.