Off-site manufacture streamlines project at Walsall College
The off-site construction of two plant rooms for Walsall College’s new business and learning campus has reduced costs and project timescale significantly. When specifying the building-services part of the project, Balfour Kilpatrick identified that off-site manufacture of plant rooms would offer value-engineering benefits and chose HVAC specialist Armstrong as the supplier.
Off-site manufacture of these plant rooms enabled building-services aspects of the work to be carried out at the same time as work on site — effectively removing it from the critical path. As installation and commissioning of the ready-assembled plant rooms could be completed far more quickly, several weeks could be cut off this part of the programme.
The two plant rooms were constructed in Armstrong’s purpose-designed factory. One provides chilled-water pumping, and the other is a boiler house supplying low-temperature hot water.
Balfour Kilpatrick and Armstrong identified other cost-reduction opportunities. The Armstrong vertical inline pumps used do not require expensive and cumbersome concrete inertia bases. Instead, they are mounted in the system pipework.
