A matter of taste for groundbreaking heat pump air curtain
Madison restaurant at St Paul’s in London is the first venue in the UK to install a ground-breaking new heat pump-based air curtain, which provides high efficiency heating and cooling.
The restaurant wanted to deliver a high-quality indoor environment for customers, while ensuring low energy and servicing costs. The air curtain provides a high velocity continuous down-draft of air, creating an invisible barrier that maintains internal comfort conditions.
It is connected to the restaurant’s Toshiba Super Modular Multi System (SMMS-e) VRF air conditioning system, enabling it to benefit from its high performance, low energy heating and cooling. Following a site survey by Toshiba’s technical staff, the system was installed by Chapman’s Refrigeration Limited. The colour-coded casing was matched to the customer’s RAL code, ensuring it blends in perfectly with its surroundings.
The air curtain was developed by Fred Shaw & Co Ltd and engineers from Toshiba Air Conditioning UK specifically to meet UK requirements. It was subjected to a battery of live tests at BSRIA’s laboratories in Bracknell to evaluate its thermal efficiency, acoustic and air-flow performance under internationally-recognised test conditions. The results prove the technology meets the performance requirements of the UK government-backed Energy Technology List (ETL) for air curtains, and it has been accepted onto the scheme. This gives end users an enhanced capital allowance on the purchase of ETL-listed equipment.
