2004 August

The popular London HEVAR show is back at Chelsea Football Club on 6 and 7 October — and is well worth a visit.

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

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.

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

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’.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

A new guide from BSRIA is aimed at building operators and M&E consultants experienced in the procurement and use of computer-based O&M manuals for building services. It is intended to help in the procurement and implementation fo the most appropriate computerised O&M systems.

Jet Environmental’s Varyflo system for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning of large retail environments, shopping malls, sports centres and factory outlets is described in a 6-page brochure.

Grundfos has added a services section to its WebCAPS online computer-aided pump selection guide. It gives access to service parts lists and exploded drawings. There is information on more than 4000 service kits and full services instructions.

The directory of standards for ventilation products published by ADCAS (Association of Ductwork Contractors & Suppliers) is now available on the Internet, along with lists of complying companies.

A guide on the design and installation of underfloor heating has been published by CIBSE’s domestic-building-services panel.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.