Inverness firm Korrie is taking advantage of the school holidays to complete work on a string of sites during daylight hours.
The mechanical, plumbing and heating company is currently installing biomass units and upgrading heating systems at six north primary schools among projects worth a total of more than £3million.
Korrie’s renewables division is carrying out the school jobs, which had to be done overnight before pupils went off for their summer break.
Now the children are off, the firm can get on with the£1million Highland Council contract during normal working hours.
Korrie operations director Peter Corbett said:”All the biomass installations will be completed by the end of August.”
The biomass projects are at Portree, Sleat and Staffin primary schools on Skye and Dunbeath in Caithness, Tarradale in Ross-shire and Balloch in Inverness.
The council hopes the work will lead to a reduced carbon footprint and lower costs.
Also on Skye, Korrie has stared work on a £200,000 contract – from Robertson Construction – to provide mechanical and heating services at Sahbal Mor Ostaig’s new Gaelic language and culture building at Kilbeg.
A £600,000 contract – also from Robertson- for work at a new Gaelic medium primary school is among a spate of orders for Korrie’s Fort William team.
In addition, the firm is involved in plumbing services for the building of 18 flats and houses on the site of the former Angus Centre in Fort William, and working on 21 flats for James MacQueen Homes at nearby Inverlochy.
In Argyll, the company has a contract from Macleod Construction for plumbing and heating work at the New Atlantic Islands Centre on Luing.
Korrie managing director Donnie Fraser said: “While we’re sustaining employment in the west, we’re also busy in the east and north.
“Robertsons has just awarded us a £700,000 contract for plumbing and heating services in 64 houses to be built at Wester Craigs, Inverness, and Compass Construction has signed us up for housing projects at the Carse (Inverness), Ardersier, Invergordon and Portree.
“This takes us to 85 per cent of the work we targeted for the whole of 2014, a really encouraging position.”