Ventilation for special school uses renewable energy from the ground to reduce carbon
Rehau’s AwaDukt Therm ground-to-air heat exchanger is being used to deliver a constant supply of tempered ventilation air for TreeHouse’s Pears National Centre for Autism Education in Muswell Hill, London. By pre-warming the air in winter and pre-cooling it in summer the system is expected to meet at least 10% of the building’s energy requirement and reduce carbon emissions by 1056 kg a year.
This building was designed by architects Penoyre & Prasad. The consulting engineers responsible for the design and specification of the Rehau system were Max Fordham LLP.
Air is drawn through a network of underground pipes under the school’s playing field to exploit the temperature of the ground, which ranges from 8 to 12°C, to temper the supply of air to central areas of the building where natural ventilation is limited.
There are three pipework grids, each 18 m long with nine separate pipes 200 mm in diameter with 500 m header pipes are each end. The pipes are of specially formulated polypropylene to optimise heat transfer between the ground and the air and have an anti-microbial lay of silver particles to prevent microbial growth.
At the Pears National Centre, each of the three grids can deliver 2600 m3/h to supplement air intake via windows and ventilation louvres.
Haymills installed the system.
