2015 July

The DECC is running out of money for renewable energy incentives. 

Camfil’s Hi-Flo II air filter is an enhanced version of the Hi-Flo low-energy air filters. Aerodynamic pockets optimise performance, and these filters have been rated A+ by Eurovent. They save up to £30 a year for every installed filter.

To help protect and improve indoor air quality in new homes, BEAMA has launched the ‘Health home mark’ campaign. It calls for support of a ‘Healthy home mark’ in all new homes to enable buyers to identify that its has been fitted with effectively installed continuous mechanical ventilation.

Gilberts of Blackpool’s Mistrale 75 ventilation units achieve accurate and stable airflow and also have low air leakage and good thermal performance. Air leakage is as low as 5 m3/h.m2, with a U-value of 0.93 W/m2K, similar to a double-glazed window.

Air conditioning delivers a quality indoor environment, and that quality can extend to indoor air quality — as Jody Lees of LG explains.

Faced with an odour problem in a recently constructed property on a new £25 million college development, a national contractor called in Gibbons Ultraviolet solutions. The Gibbons team recognised the constant, offensive odour as so-called ‘dirty-sock syndrome’ being harboured by the HVAC system.

Following the development of a centre dedicated to training in ventilation cleaning and hygiene, Peter Reid of AEME and Overclean traces the leading role that the UK has played in developing awareness and standards for indoor air quality throughout the world.

Seaview International Holiday Park at St Austell in Cornwall boasts exceptionally high-quality shower blocks and is enjoying significant savings in fuel consumption since the installation of Rinnai continuous-flow water heaters to replace the stored-hot-water system. One benefit for visitors is that the showers will never run out of hot water.

When the aging atmospheric boiler and heat exchanger at a distillery in Somerset started to fail, the owner of Burrow Hill Farm, Julian Temperley, installed a Remeha Quinta Pro 30 LPG boiler to halve fuel consumption. It is used for pasteurising the farm’s apple juice and in the fermentation of the company’s award-winning Burrow Hill Cider. The farm also distils its cider into Somerset Cider Brandy.

A reversible hat pump and a thermal wheel are key features of a Flakt Woods ventilation system installed as part of the refurbishment of the Arundel Building at Sheffield Hallam University. The system can supply up to 2.5 m3/s of conditioning air into a VAV (variable air volume) system and incorporates inverter-driven compressors. It replaces a natural-ventilation system.

Adcock Refrigeration & Air Conditioning has taken action to help businesses better understand why regular maintenance of their air-conditioning system is important. A comprehensive fact sheet has been prepared to help those who are not yet aware of recent changes in EU legislation affecting refrigerants. There are thought to be thousands of SMEs in the UK that are still not aware of the rules, mainly because they do not have a maintenance plan.

Hartpury College in Gloucester is looking forward to reducing its energy bill of £800 000 a year following the replacement of oil-fired heating plant with a biomass district-heating system. The project will qualify for payments from the Renewable Heat Incentive of nearly £80 000 a year. Euroheat supplied the system for this residential agricultural and sports college, which has over 1300 students.

Faced with the huge cost and disruption of replacing an underfloor heating at a Grade 2-listed home in Cambridgeshire, its owners found a solution with Timoleon’s ToronFloor and LowBoard low-profile system.

Following the successful installation of Adey’s MagnaClean Commercial filter in the heating system at Fairfield Health Club at Stotfold in Bedfordshire, Bannatyne Health Clubs now specify it as part of plant efficiency upgrades.

Many of the problems associated with controlling legionella bacteria in domestic-hot-water systems can be solved by choosing to install a gas-fired continuous-flow system, explains Chris Goggin, associate director with Rinnai UK.

RS Components has upgraded the building-management system in its distribution centre at Nuneaton to improve energy efficiency. Installer SSE Enterprise Energy Solutions worked with the company to upgrade the BMS for the 160 000 m2 facility to a Siemens Desigo design.

Cloud-based software company Software Europe has marked its 25th anniversary with an overhaul of the building services at its Lincoln headquarters, with the help of a finance package from Mitsubishi Electric. Existing plant included a 15-year-old AHU with a gas-fired LTHW coil and a DX chiller coil ducted-air system. The parts were obsolete and failing, and there was poor temperature control in the building. The new equipment has reduced costs by over £12 000 — much more than the interest payable.

Kamco’s Scalebreaker C210 tank-mounted descaling pump is designed to increase safety by keeping descaling chemicals enclosed at all times within the tank, hoses or equipment being descaled. Applications include the chemical cleaning of calorifiers, boilers, plate heat exchangers and cooling circuits.

Windrush Leisure Centre in Witney, Oxfordshire, has replaced three poorly performing gas direct-fired water heaters with Rinnai Infinity continuous gas-fired water heaters. The three HDC1500 water heaters are on a secondary return system, so there is no need for storage.

Annual energy-cost savings of over 70% are expected at the Warton site of BAE Systems following upgrading of computer-room air-conditioning (CRAC) systems. The savings of £350 000 a year should recoup the cost of the project in just 15 months. The requirement was for a cost-effective upgrade to increase cooling performance and efficiency without disrupting the testing and production of combat and training aircraft such as the Typhoon and Hawk advanced jet trainer.

Poor-quality water-treatment chemicals can very quickly lead to major problems in heating systems. Ian Barnes of Sentinel Commercial explains how specifiers can ensure the delivery of best water-treatment practice procedures and, therefore, long-term heating system protection.

Cool-Therm has supplied two low-temperature Tonon chillers for a major replacement project at Swindon Hospital. The project was carried out with Carillion and harnesses the low-temperature performance of these multi-scroll industrial chillers using a reduced charge of R410A.

Although the world is going digital, many buildings remain stubbornly unconnected. Bruce Kirton of the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES) explains why this opens up huge opportunities for specialist operation and maintenance contractors.

Maintenance and refurbishment work is a growing business for Airedale International Air Conditioning, which has a 50-strong technical team that provides a national maintenance, refurbishment and project management service. Adrian Trevelyan describes what can be achieved.

Sentinel Commercial now offers its KalGuard system for preventing limescale formation as a 22 mm package suitable for most small commercial buildings. It includes a zinc anode unit, water meter and controller that is set to a 22 mm commissioning mode to create a true plug-and-play solution.

Victaulic’s grooved pipe-jointing system has been used to replace welded steel pipework in a major upgrade of HVAC systems of William Booth College in Denmark Hill, London. Not only was the system faster to install, but it also overcome the many hazards of hot working, especially in tunnels carrying pipes from the central plant room to the various buildings on the site.

Is maintenance work best carried out by in-house staff or outsourced? Jo Harris of BSRIA brings together some of the ideas discussed at a seminar organised by the association.

Albion Valves has secured approval from the UK Water Regulations Approval Scheme (WRAS) for its range of solenoid valves, which are now compliant for potable-water applications across the HVAC industry.

Ideal Commercial Boilers now offers a 5-year warranty for its Evomax range of wall-hung condensing boilers. These boilers are available in seven outputs from 30 to 150 kW. Service and support is available throughout any installation project through Ideal’s skilled, UK-based call-centre team and nationwide service team.

EMSc (UK) Ltd, which manufactures the Powerstar range of voltage-optimisation systems, has been named among Yorkshire’s top 100 SMEs for 2015. The Sheffield-based firm is 56 on the BHP list of Yorkshire’s top SMEs and also in the top 15 manufacturing firms on the list.

Wavin’s ‘Connect to better’ branding concept underlines this plumbing and drainage manufacturer’s promise to connect its customers to better technologies, partnerships and solutions — whatever their project or challenge. The concept highlights six key benefits that customers receive — innovation, performance, partnership, services, value and sustainability.

Elco UK has extended the guarantees on its range of floor-standing gas-fired condensing boilers to 10 years. All boilers in the R600, R3400, R3600 and Trigon L ranges have this comprehensive warranty.

TDB (The Data Builder) is highly flexible PLC free license software. Configurable in an infinite number of ways to precisely meet your HVAC or BEMS control system requirements, it has the ability to communicate across multiple third-party networks and facilitates real-time monitoring of inputs, outputs and parameters — giving an accurate system overview, while making fault diagnosis quick and easy.

LG Electronics has received an energy-efficiency label from Eurovent for its Multi V IV VRF system. Eurovent oversees the performance rating of air-conditioning and refrigeration products in Europe. Eurovent began to certify the efficiency of VRF systems in 2014.

Desigo Touch and Web is an operating solution for the Desigo building automation system. Two intuitive touch panels offer significantly more convenient and efficient operation of building plants than conventional solutions. A newly developed interface adds browser-controlled plant operation of multiple plants.

The inaugural awards of the Commissioning Specialists’ Association proved to be an excellent and enjoyable forum in which to celebrate business and professional excellence right across our industry — and what a great way to help celebrate our 25th Anniversary Year and ‘25 years of making buildings work’.

The Ecodan boat sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric that will be rowed across the Atlantic Ocean later this year recently received Britain’s most successful Olympic rowers as guests. Sir Steve Redgrave (in the front of the boat (i.e. left) and Sir Matthew Pinsent (in front of him) lent their support to the All Beans No Monkeys team for their participation in the Tallisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. They were at the BMW PGA Golf Championship at Wentworth Club.

Imtech Inviron has been awarded a 3-year contract at the St Katherine Docks development in London, owned by the Blackstone Group. As a provider of technical facilities manager, Imtech Inviron will undertake extensive technical and project services in the luxury offices and commercial buildings.

As part of its 60-year celebration, BSRIA recently held a reception at the House of Lords, It was hosted by Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan (in centre of picture next to chief executive Julia Evans), a previous chairman of the BSRIA Briefing. The event was attended by over a hundred of BSRIA’s member organisations. Commemorative plaques were presented to the representatives of the 22 companies that were founding members of BSRIA and have retained their membership of BSRIA for 60 years.

M&E Services installed by LJJ for the £1.3 million fit-out at East Berkshire College’s Langley campus will enable a new generation of construction and engineering students to experience what it is really like to work on site as part of a campus upgrade at the college.

Pressure-independent control valves (PICVs) are expected to nearly double their share of a growing market for valves in Europe — according to a market survey by BSRIA of the hydronic controls market in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK. This market is collectively worth some €2 billion, and its volume is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 2.7% up to 2017. The share by volume of PICVs is expected to reach 12% in 2018 compared to 7% in 2013,

This energy-efficient arts centre, Stratford Artshouse, features building services designed by Greenways and has been named ‘Best major commercial work’ by Stratford-on-Avon District council building-control office. Designed by Marson, Rathbone Taylor Architects, it is a contemporary multi-purpose venue with facilities that include a mobile bespoke curved theatre-seating system.

SPIE Building Services Northern has completed a project for the University of Bradford involving updating and improving staff offices and teaching spaces in the Pemberton Building at the City Campus. The 10-week development was the latest in a line of projects awarded to SPIE by the university in 2014.

Vital Energi is to undertake the design and build of a £4.9 million energy centre at the Royal Arsenal Riverside project. The company has been working on the project since 2006.

The chief executives of BSRIA and FETA recently visited ductwork manufacturer ASM Engineering to find out more about the manufacture of ductwork and its importance for efficient and effective buildings. The Hitchin-based company welcomed Julia Evans of BSRIA and Russell Beattie of FETA, as well as Malcolm Moss, president of the Association of Ductwork Contractors & Allied Services — of which ASM is a member.

The Scottish Government has published a ‘Heat policy statement’ setting out its approach to decarbonising the heat system, along with a framework for investment in a low-carbon heat sector. The statement is another component in the Scottish Government’s comprehensive approach to energy in Scotland, alongside placing energy efficiency at the heart of the approach to be taken towards decarbonising the whole energy system.

NG Bailey has won a £7 million contract as part of a major modernisation of Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The project is for providing the M&E services for a £40 million extension. Working with principal contractor Simons Group, NG Bailey will compete its role on site in August 2016.

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector is leading the take-up of BIM (building information modelling), according to a worldwide survey carried out by Business Advantage. Nearly 49% of respondents in the AEC sector already use BIM, and this proportion is expected to reach 58% by the end of 2015, according to Chris Turner, CEO/managing director of Business Advantage.

1200 employees of Grundfos Pumps recently gathered in Denmark to participate in 26 sports during the Grundfos olympic games. They came from 55 countries to participate in 26 sports. The event is held every four years and brings together people and cultures with a focus on teambuilding and friendship.

Waterloo Air Products is supporting this year’s bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo . By collaborating with the Royal Armouries, the company is helping to preserve one of the six surviving cannon from the battle, which form an important part of arms at the Tower of London.

Following the sharp reduction in the RHI tariffs for small commercial biomass (less than 200 kW thermal) Peter Solly, managing director of Forest Fuels, believes that the scope for larger installations is more positive. The recent 15% reduction in the tariff for small schemes, with a further 25% due this summer, is due to the strong uptake of commercial biomass on this scale.