Whenever building-services engineers concern themselves about the costs associated with their aspects of a building project they generally confine themselves to capital costs (to reduce initial cost), value engineering (to strip out unnecessary cost) and whole-life costs (reducing operating costs such as energy consumption and maintenance).

Discussions and debates about climate change always focus on the build-up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases in the atmosphere and consequent rising temperatures in the not-too-distant future. The aim is to stimulate action to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, as is less-often mentioned, the accumulation of greenhouse gases to date is so great that even if their emissions were reduced to zero now, there would be little effect on global warming for several decades.

A concept developed by Arup makes it possible to simulate the performance of buildings from concert halls to offices before they are built.

While you cannot design office accommodation that will never need rearranging, you can design for flexibility and ease of change — as PADDY HASTINGS explains.

IAN LILLEY explains how putting air conditioning under the floor can massively alleviate the problems of rearranging and repartitioning offices.

Pre-fabrication and the use of modular systems assembled off-site is now common practice throughout the construction industry. MIKE JOHNSON discusses the benefits of modular wiring systems.

Changes to the the control of lighting systems can be easily achieved following the installation of Wieland Electric’s Gesis RC product family using wireless technology from EnOcean.

A ground-source heat pump at the National Energy Centre at Milton Keynes can heat a new building with no carbon emissions.

Upgrading heating plant and installing a new boiler is a major purchase for organisations. GRAHAM WILLIAMSOn looks at why, despite the initial outlay, it is better to replace rather than continue to repair ailing heating plant.

Designers, contractors and end users should make much more use of prefabricated boiler and hot-water plant, says Ken Percival.

Common-sense methods of controlling boiler plant are frequently not exploited. Julian Miller explains how energy savings of at least 20% and as much as 40% can be achieved.

Common-sense methods of controlling boiler plant are frequently not exploited. Julian Miller explains how energy savings of at least 20% and as much as 40% can be achieved.

Designers, contractors and end users should make much more use of prefabricated boiler and hot-water plant, says Ken Percival.

David Pepper considers the driving forces for efficient water heating and the opportunities in refurbishment projects.

Keston’s prefabrication service is, says managing director Nick Stevenson, designed to ‘take the headache out of designing a heating system, by way of bespoke prefabricated, pre-assembled boiler-plant rigs that are designed individually to meet the exact needs of the project and dramatically cut on-site installation time’.

The Stokvis Econoflame R30 series of wall-hung condensing boilers comprises four models with outputs from 45 to 100 kW.

Self-contained electric DHW solutions for 114 apartments in central Manchester, including a renovated Grade II listed warehouse and two purpose-built blocks, are provided by Gledhill’s PulsaCoil system.

As part of the refurbishment of the boiler house at Petherton Road Day Hospital in Bristol, Priva control systems have been installed.

Rycroft has developed an interactive computer program that enables water-heating systems for major projects to be selected and specified in a matter of minutes.

Such is the efficiency of two Spirax Sarco EasiHeat engineered systems installed to replace a large boiler providing space heating at the L’Oreal factory in Wales that an installed capacity only a quarter of what was used before is adequate for even the coldest winter days.

A novel engineering feature in the State range of water heaters prolongs life, reduces heating costs and premature replacement.

A 2-stage burner is now standard on Ferroli’s entire Pegasus range of atmospheric floor-standing boilers. There are 20 boilers in the range with outputs from 50 to 290 kW.

To provide heating and hot water for an eco-friendly barn conversion designed by architect Michael Watson as his own home, Brian Hollidge of Advanced Heating & Cooling of Cambridge specified a Vaillant high-efficiency condensing combination boiler.

A gas-fired condensing boiler that can serve two independent heating circuits and one hot-water circuit has been developed by Geminox.

Delivering projects more efficiently requires improved collaboration. Anne King explains how information and communications technology could be a means to this end.

As part of the 3-year renovation of the Royal Festival Hall in London, the heating system is being modernised. The work includes the replacement of existing aged boilers with four Viessmann Vitoplex 300 boilers of 1750 kW output and an efficiency of 85%.

Estimation has launched a services-and-maintenance module. It is designed for managing every aspect of a service department in a contracting organisation or for companies that specialise in building-services maintenance.

Commissioning and maintenance specialist Commtech offers a web-based documentation service as part of its engineering support services. It is seen as a vital element in its after-sales care, leading to high levels of repeat business.

Orders for private-commercial projects dipped by 1% in the year to May 2004 compared to the previous year — according to figures from the Department of Trade & Industry. However, there was a 29% rise in the three months to May compared to the same period a year earlier, but a 9% fall on the previous three months.

Reflecting the growing interest of boiler manufacturers in other heating technologies such as CHP, fuel cells and solar, BCEMA [British Combustion Equipment Manufacturers’ Association] has changed its name to ICOM Energy Association [Industrial & Commercial Energy Association].

Toshiba has acquired 20% of one of China’s leading manufacturers of air conditioning. Guangdong Midea Air Conditioning is well positioned in the residential and light-commercial sectors and had an estimated turnover of US$825 million in 2003.

Around a third of buildings tested by BRE are failing the airtightness test two-and-a-half years after the introduction of Approved Document L2. The news emerged just as as the consultation document for the latest Part L on energy efficiency was released by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Faye Mullins (left) spent 18 months looking for a Modern Apprenticeship in plumbing. Then she contacted SES — and became the company’s first female apprentice plumber. She is pictured here receiving her Trainee Skillcard from Bill Teesdale, project manager at the DEFRA/VLA project — a £10 million project in Weybridge that is providing her first site experience.

CIBSE’s north east region and Northumbria University have started a scheme for companies to sponsor students enrolling for the honours degree in building-services engineer. The scheme will assist students by paying their tuition fees — currently £1150 a year.

Energy Technique has launched an air-treatment division after a share placing that raised £3 million of new capital. The new division will focus on specialist air filtration and energy-efficient ventilation products.

Grundfos Pumps has been recognised as an ‘Investor in excellence’ as part of the UK Excellence Recognition Programme. This mark of achievement enables organisations to demonstrate their performance against the Business Excellence Model, which is based on nine principles designed to drive improvements in all key areas of an organisation. They include leadership, processes, people and customer results.

Nuaire has won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for its energy-saving ventilation systems.

Nuaire has won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for its energy-saving ventilation systems.

A specification system for engineering services has been developed by NBS, part of RIBA Enterprises. Written specifically for the sector by an expert team of in-house engineers, NBS Engineering Services is based on the same methods used by over 25 000 building-fabric specifiers who already use the NBS. It brings 30 years of experience to the £30 billion building-services market.

Up to 300 air-handling units, worth over £3 million, could eventually be supplied by McQuay for Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, Delivery will be completed in about two years’ time.

Fuel Cell is performing well and worth watching — according the the daily newspaper Racing Post. The 3-year-old chestnut colt is owned by AFM Group, which includes contractors BTU Heating and BTU Maintenance.

GSH’s most successful charity event to date has resulted in £18 500 being shared between the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and the Donna Louise Trust, a children’s hospice service in the North West. The money was raised at a Paris-in-spring-time themed ball attended by over 300 employees, clients and suppliers.

When the ‘dazed’ first president of the Heating & Ventilating Contractors’ Association, David Mein Nesbit, ‘materialised’ in the present at the start of the HVCA Centenary Convention to be greeted by today’s director Robert Higgs and told where in time and space he was, he immediately wanted to know what progress had been made on the issues prevailing when the association was first founded.

The completion of a national distribution agreement between distributor CCL Veloduct and Flakt Woods is claimed to have confirmed CCL’s position as Britain’s premier supplier of fans and air-movement products.

Natural ventilation, exposed mass and air-conditioning using an absorption chiller served by hot water from CHP plant have been brought together to service a new building at Warwick University.

A large-scale system for monitoring the temperature of hot water and storing data at the Port of Dover is designed to protect against the risk of legionella.

Two 40 m-high flue stacks have been supplied for the Optima Building development in Glasgow. One serves two condensing appliances, and the other serves two forced-draught boilers.

Chilled beams have been used in the headquarters of Nationwide at Swindon to supplement the cooling capacity of an older VAV system with minimal structural work and disruption. The solution was designed by consulting engineers Building Management Technology to meet increased cooling loads.

Dadanco’s cassette active chilled beams are being installed to provide comfort cooling for the refurbishment of the 12-storey Redvers House project in Sheffield. This building dates from the early 1970s and is being refurbished to provide a very high standard of city-centre accommodation for Sheffield City Council.

As part of the prestigious ‘Blue Box’ makeover by Peugeot of the Warwick Wright dealership on London’s Chiswick roundabout, a fully air-conditioned split-level extension has been added to the existing showroom. The site is also the headquarters for the dealership’s fleet sales.

Nearly half the total value of air-conditioning equipment for the building infrastructure of the Olympic Games in Athens is claimed to have been supplied by Carrier.

As part of an £8 million expansion of the University of Southampton’s Hartley Library to expand its general collection for the next 10 years and allow it to acquire special collections of archives for the next 20 years, Kingspan’s KoolDuct system is used to distribute conditioned air.

Over 500 specialised fan-coil units for hotels have been supplied by Diffusion for the newly built Westminster branch in central London of the expanding City Inn Hotel network. This hotel is the fourth in a fast-building chain that includes Glasgow, Birmingham and Bristol.

Stagnant water in pressurised systems at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh is being avoided be using twin-port flow-through reservoir vessels. They are self-flushing in operation.

An alternative to discharge lighting for high-bay and low-bay lighting in retail, industrial and sports-hall applications is provided by the Crompton Linergy T5 luminaire using T5 fluorescent lamps.

Hamworthy’s Masterflue MF is described as a leak-free flue system that is suitable for high volumes of condensate.

Autron’s Slenderline range of low-surface-temperature radiators is claimed to be the slimmest on the market. They have a depth from face to wall of just 75 mm, which is said to be some 10 mm less than other LST radiators on the market.

Sharp’s Plasmacluster Eco Inverter split-system air-conditioning units are now available from Axair Climate.

Fujitsu has introduced a network controller for its VRF air-conditioning systems. It provides control of existing split systems and enables new centralised systems to be more easily designed. Split systems can be managed from a central remote controller or PC to provide, for example, central on/off control, master control, and temperature and fan control.

Gilberts has relaunched its popular GSD range of diffusers with an improved specification at a lower price.

Whitecroft Lighting’s Softcell 3 luminaire offers lighting designers the opportunity to comply with codes LG3:2001 and LG7:2004 using a single design of luminaire.

Carrier’s Sensation small high-wall split air-conditioning system provides a quick method of responding a sudden perceived demand in small office, shops and studios.

Jasun Filtration has launched two novel systems for removing and reducing odours and chemical fumes from the workplace.

To meet a growing demand for the accurate of hot and cold water use in multiple-tenancy buildings such as shared offices and private apartment blocks, Coster Environmental Controls has launched a range of pulsed water-metering equipment. They are designed around a modular concept, making it possible to devise cost-effective solutions for requirements from domestic applications to major commercial projects.

The use of stainless steel for a range of panel heaters from Heatstore gives them a contemporary look for modern offices and homes.

A duct-mounted ventilation system from Vortice combines high pressure development and good airflow.

Airedale’s EasiCool range of close-control air conditioners provides accurate control of temperature and humidity for applications such as defence, healthcare, finance, clean-room manufacturing and IT environments. Cooling capacities range from 5 to 25 kW in both direct-expansion and water-cooled models.

The Series R trunking system from Marshall-Tufflex has a single lid and is designed to carry large quantities of cable and accommodate deep accessory boxes.

A range of air-handling units that offers the benefits of a bespoke system in a standardised format has been achieved by Moducel with the development of the Flexaire LKP range. The 14 models have been designed to provide high-specification units with reduced maintenance needs and total life costs.

Sanyo has introduced a VRF system using R410A for maximum efficiency and to achieve extended pipe runs of up to 150 m.

To provide continuous ventilation with standby fans, Helios offers units with two fans from 125 to 500 mm diameter in a single casing with both inlet and outlet connection. Larger sizes are available to order.

A mounting base for Aico mains-powered smoke alarms enables them to communicate without using cables. The Ei168 Radio-Link RF Interconnect mounting base can be used with Ei140 and Ei160 smoke alarms.

ABB’s standard drive for HVAC applications now has a maintenance assistance to help schedule maintenance of the drive and associated equipment where there is no BMS.

Rectus-Tema has had its 1800/1900 push-on and quick-connect couplings tested to a new standard for hose assemblies. Developed by BSRIA, the standard is BG4/2004.

The launch of the latest range of Medium CR multistage centrifugal pumps by Grundfos brings the number of CR variants up to 11 flow sizes and hundreds of pressure sizes. There are also four basic types of materials.

Ken Shuttleworth, Roger Zogolovich, Sir Michael Latham and Nigel Griffiths MP are the latest leading industry figures to join chairman Sir Richard Saxon CBE in the debates at this year’s ‘Building performance is business performance’ conference at Olympia in London on 6 and 7 October.