Engineering skills overcome issues of installing air-conditioning chillers on 28-storey building
Walter Meier’s ability to break down chillers and reassemble the on site solved significant logistical problems in the installation of cooling plant at Alpha Tower in Birmingham. Innovative reassembly techniques also eliminated issues involved with working at height and the need for higher edge protection on the roof.
The 28-storey Alpha Tower was previously served by a district cooling system from the nearby ATV Centre. When this centre was demolished, the tower required its own cooling plant, which had to be installed on the roof.
Barrie Evans of M&E contractor Interserve Engineering Services explains, ‘The ground-level access was not suitable for a large crane, and helicopter lifts are not allowed in the city-centre area of Alpha Tower, so we were faced with using a modified hoist to lift the chiller piece by piece. We considered bespoke chillers built in modules, but this presented costs and spares issue. Then Walter Meier said they could supply the chillers in pieces and rebuild them on the roof.’
Each of the four Hitachi 530 kW air-cooled chillers was de-gassed, broken down and labelled in Walter Meier’s engineering workshops for delivering to site in modules that would fit in the hoist. To avoid engineers working on top of the chiller, the Walter Meier team devised a technique to rebuild them from the top down, so the main contractor did not have to install higher-than standard edge protection on the roof.
