Honeywell valves control water pressure in Liverpool’s tallest building
Liverpool’s tallest building, the 40-storey West Tower, is fitted with Honeywell pressure-regulating and safety valves to ensure constant ideal water pressures to all domestic water outlets and fire-extinguishing systems. They also protect water systems from excessive pressure. The systems include a mixture of brass-bodies and cast-iron valves.
The valves were selected by A&B Engineering MSD Ltd of Liverpool, which designed and installed the M&E systems.
West Tower provides a mixture of office space and luxury apartments. Its water systems are fed by booster sets in the basement. To ensure satisfactory pressures on every floor of the 140 m-high tower, high-flow pressure-regulating valves are installed in the booster sets to maintain 19 bar in the domestic supply mains and in the wet riser feeding the tower’s fire sprinkler system. The valves also reduce the wet riser pressure to 9 bar for the car-park sprinklers.
The wet riser is protected by a safety valve that relieves at 25 bar, discharging water into a concrete reservoir serving the wet riser should the booster set malfunction.
Pressure to each floor is regulated initially to 6 bar by a compact pressure-reducing valve in a plant room on each floor. Each apartment is served by a valve to maintain 2.5 bar.
