2018 October

From April 2019 the rules on energy and carbon reporting are changing. What does this mean for you and your organisation?

“There’s often an unintended underlying theme in our features, even though they deal with different aspects of building services. This month, the motif is transformation.

NG Bailey has created a new £300m Services division to bring together its Facilities Engineering Services and IT Services businesses, alongside the recently-acquired Freedom Group. Peter Jones will head up the new division.

SPIE UK has secured an M&E framework agreement with Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL). Under the agreement, SPIE has also been selected as principal contractor for the chiller replacement works at the airport. This will be the first contract secured under the 4-year agreement, which is valued at £2m per annum.

Three trade bodies have joined forces to secure an historic agreement from the four UK governments to manage and develop apprenticeships, qualifications and National Occupational Standards for the building services engineering sector.

21-year-old Jack Teasdale of OPUS Building Services in Sunderland is the winner of the 2018 ECA Edmundson Apprentice of the Year Award. The announcement was made at a ceremony in London on 19th September.

The MBS Industry Survey is designed to gather information on how the building services sector is performing, and what the industry believes the important issues are.

The Smart Buildings Show 2018, has announced an influential conference programme including presentations from some of the biggest names in the industry including Bluetooth SIG, BSRIA, Capita, Engie, Honeywell Building Solutions, Hurley Palmer Flatt, IBM, ISS UK, JLL, KNX UK, Microsoft, Schneider Electric and Spica.

The industry has welcomed the recent update of BB101 (2018) Guidelines on ventilation, thermal comfort and indoor air quality in schools which includes tougher targets for some key areas of building services.

Speaking at the BESA Annual President’s Lunch on 26th September, Hopkinson said: “We are seeing the birth of a new era where traditional methods are under scrutiny and where our professional credibility is more important than ever before.

There is no denying that buildings are getting smarter. As IoT has affected our domestic lives, commercial real estate managers are now adopting a connected strategy to save money and make buildings more pleasant and productive workspaces, plus making them more cost-efficient and profitable.

BB101 Guidelines on ventilation, thermal comfort and indoor air quality in schools was updated in August 2018, and it sets some tough targets for building services. The document addresses three key services-related areas in school buildings: ventilation; thermal comfort; and indoor air quality (IAQ) – and introduces higher standards for all of them.

Building engineering services will have to take a leaf out of the manufacturing industry’s book as it strives to deliver an increasingly challenging workload.

Ecoflam has supplied one of its 350kW Max Gas gas burners as part of the refurbishment of an anaerobic heating system. The system is based at Channing and Sons farm in Coventry. Unfortunately, the original burner failed and was difficult to maintain. Experts Ryla Combustion recommended the Ecoflam Max Gas product due to its efficiency and ease of installation.

Cable management specialist, Unitrunk, has supplied the company’s RIS (Rapid Installation Systems) Uniklip cable tray and EasyConnect cable basket as part of a fast-track school extension programme at Histon and Impington Junior School in Cambridge.

A new 79-bedroom Travelodge Hotel has opened on the Little King Street site in East Grinstead.

Ramboll, the consulting engineers for Quintain’s prestigious Wembley Park development, have specified SWEP 2-stage brazed plate heat exchanger (BPHE) units to drive the single heat network that will serve the site.

Pump House recently supplied a number of its flat roof plant support frames to the Richmond Education and Enterprise Campus development on Egerton Road in Twickenham, West London. The 20,000 sqm, 3-storey development was overseen by Willmott Dixon Construction, working with ECE Architecture. CMB Engineering (Cardiff) the mechanical contractor on the project, selected Flexi Support Systems from Pump House to support a number of rooftop air-handling units and chillers. A combination of flexi modular light and heavy duty frameworks were chosen to support a variety of services ranging in different sizes and weights.

John Keats Primary School is a new free school occupying the first two floors of a new residential development in South Bermondsey, London. The school opens to reception pupils in September 2018, and will eventually accommodate up to 450 students..

Rehau’s Rautitan universal pipework solution has been installed in 13 luxury apartments, located on Edinburgh’s world-renowned Royal Mile.

The Haberdashers’ Aske School in Elstree is a leading independent school for girls of 4 to 18 years old. Originally established in 1875, it is a well-respected name within the education sector. Their aim is to help each pupil attain their individual potential.

Fan coil units are a popular choice for engineers when selecting a reliable and efficient source of heating and cooling for a building. They do not require a large central plant to function and with simple proven, controllable technology and installation flexibility, they meet the demands of most commercial applications.

Glasgow Life turned to IES Consulting to address issues concerning operational performance at the Riverside Museum, which is the city’s award-winning transport museum. It houses over 3,000 objects – from skateboards to locomotives, paintings to prams and cars to a Stormtrooper.

Heritage assets have a huge role to play in regeneration but can result in many construction challenges, especially for mechanical and electrical contractors. Implementing modern services into an historic building, especially one that is listed, is challenging both in terms of design and installation. Each project will present its own set of hurdles depending on the type of building and its future use, so there is a wide range of factors to consider.

Legionella bacteria can breed in any stagnant water within the 25oC to 45oC temperature range, doubling in number every eight hours. Public health is just as much at risk from Legionella in private homes and offices as it is in large scale public buildings but there are three major factors that create additional risk in healthcare environments.

If the building management system is the brains of a HVAC system and pumps are the heart, then the pipework is the cardiovascular system, distributing water, refrigerant, air and gas around the building to ensure it operates effectively.

Wellness trends, such as health tourism and workplace fitness, are having a huge impact across the building services industry. Managers must increasingly consider hot water delivery in a wide range of environments – from office shower facilities to residential gyms and luxury hotel spas.

The Industrial and Commercial Energy Association (ICOM) has published Water Quality Consideration of Domestic Hot Water Systems for Commercial Applications.

For the past eighteen years, the Pump Industry Awards has been recognising the best performing companies, products and people for their achievements, developments and positive contributions within this important industry sector. The BPMA will again lead the way in championing those who strive for business, professional and engineering excellence, through the launch of the 2019 awards programme.

Desigo Control Point is the new embedded building management station from Siemens. It consists of touch panels in several sizes and of web servers that enable remote control of buildings from any smart device. Installation and operation are straightforward.

Warm air heaters are subject to Lot 21 of the directive and radiant heaters Lot 20. Minimum efficiencies for warm air is now 72% and radiant heaters is now 74%. Crucially, these minimum criteria are applicable for both new installations and when replacing existing products.

Panasonic is changing the game for commercial heating and cooling with the launch of its new 3-pipe ECOi-EX MF3 series. With outstanding efficiency even in extreme ambient temperatures, a high SEER/SCOP at full load capacity plus an increase in piping length and the number of connectable indoor units, the ECOi-EX MF3 sets a powerful new standard in VRF system performance and project design flexibility.

Grundfos understands that for specifiers and installers to be successful, they need the right team behind them, so the company is delighted to announce its new and improved domestic circulator lineup - ready to meet all the challenges of the heating season.

Chris Goggin of Rinnai says the way to the future, for installers, specifiers and end-users, with an online and fully digitalised approach to trading in today’s world.

The Grundfos Ecademy has built up an enviable reputation for successfully delivering a range of product and industry related bite sized training topics, that can all be accessed 24/7 from a smartphone, tablet or computer.

HVAC manufacturing specialist Nortek is focusing on delivering excellent customer service now its UK brands have consolidated under the Reznor name.

Viessmann is adding a domestic oil boiler to its UK product range, having operated in the market for many years as a niche player. 

Carlo Gavazzi has appointed Hertfordshire based, Elcomponent as a Specialist Energy Partner, offering the full range of Carlo Gavazzi Energy Management products which complement their own highly commended Energy Software Solution to capture data from both their smart metering systems or aM&T packages.

Mitsubishi Electric has won a prestigious Red Dot Award for product design for its M Series MSZ-AP range of wall mounted room air conditioning systems. The internationally recognised award celebrates products that have achieved the highest levels of design quality.

The government's plans for the construction sector are ambitious. Earlier this year Theresa May announced that her government aims to bring about a 50% reduction in energy use of new buildings by 2030, saying that, “By halving the energy use of new buildings – both commercial and residential – we could reduce the energy bills for their occupants by as much as 50 per cent.”

Trying to keep up-to-date with the ebb and flow of regulations that occur in the water industry is a challenge, and keeping abreast of the shifting sands of byelaw amendments and legal revisions can be a full time job.

Today’s HVAC system components are highlyefficient, but the key to overall system efficiency lies in designing specifically to exploit the part-load conditions under which the equipment will operate throughout its lifetime.

It may go against the grain, but I believe sole reliance on sampling as diagnostic practice is outmoded. The reason for this view is that these days there are more innovative and comprehensive ways to pick up the problems that lead to corrosion, allowing building managers to have better control of their water systems and quickly react to changes in condition, before bigger problems take hold.

Whether accidental or intentional, fires damage more than just the structure of a building. They can wipe out millions of pounds worth of stock, destroy homes and the treasured possessions within them, damage hardearned reputations, pollute the surrounding environment and, in the most serious of cases, cost lives.

Offsite build is today recognised as providing a vital solution that is helping to overcome a range of issues currently being experienced, for example, the industry wide skills shortage. These pre-engineered solutions tick all the boxes in terms of the coordination of a range of elements from planning and design, through to fabrication, the actual assembly of components, plus all required testing.