2008 May

The costs and complexities of Type Testing of electrical panels are leading to it being avoided, which concerns Dave Holcroft.

The right skills in the right place at the right time and in the right quantities are the heady objectives of the sector skills agreement for the industry launched by SummitSkills.

Taking the application of ground-source heat pumps a significant step forward by collecting and storing energy from the Sun during the summer and using it for heating in the winter is a new school in Hertfordshire.

Modern lighting equipment and lighting practice is far from wasteful in its use of energy — but still achieves aesthetically pleasing lighting installations, as the new low-carbon category of the Lighting Design Awards demonstrated.

Modern Building Services is the UK's most popular Building-Services Engineering magazine and website, and we're always looking to reach new readers and improve the quality of service we offer. To encourage people to sign up for the magazine - and for current readers to keep us up to date on their details - until the end of September we're offering an additional incentive to (re) register for MBS.

Three Buro Happold employees raised £3000 running in the London Marathon last month, including £1500 from the company. The money raised will benefit a selection of worth causes.

Danfoss has taken a stake in the fast-growing heat-pump market in the UK with the acquisition of Eco Heat Pumps. This is the sixth acquisition that Danfoss has made in the heat-pump sector in less than three years.

Modern variable-speed drives can become an integral part of a building-management system — and eliminate the need for motor control panels. John Reid describes the realities.

Gripple has received a second Queen’s Award for Enterprise — this time for the growth of its international business. The Gripple wire suspension system is widely used to support services such as ductwork, pipework and lighting, and nearly 300 million wire joiners have been sold to this and other industries since it was invented 20 years ago.

Grundfos Group has reported record sales figures for 2007 of £1.68 billion. Emerging markets in eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and China showed strong growth, but even the traditional more mature markets in western Europe showed a healthy 6% growth.

BRE has boosted its expertise in intelligent buildings with the acquisition of two specialist divisions of i&i Ltd, Europe’s leading intelligent-building consultancy. The acquisition brings two important services areas into BRE — intelligent-building-systems consultancy and ibexcellence, the world-renowned Centre of Excellence for Intelligent Building.

The Construction Products Association has cast serious doubts on the Government’s target to see 240 000 new homes a year built to zero-carbon standards by 2016 in a new report.

Hamworthy Heating has been acquired by Group Atlantic of France, which is well known across Europe for its commercial and domestic boilers, electric water heaters, panel heaters, towel driers, air conditioning, ventilation and renewable energy. It already has a presence in the UK through its Atlantic and Ygnis brands.

Balfour Kilpatrick has been awarded a £10 million contract to design, supply and install M&E services for a new arts and technology college. Walsall College is adding the college to its existing four sites.

David Shouksmith, project manager with building-services company Shouksmiths give a final once-over to its latest ‘complete package’ project. Concept House in Leeds was completed for main contractors Carillon and client Unite, the UK’s largest provider of student hospitality and accommodation.

The web site for the exhibition H&V09 is now live (address below). This comprehensive resource has a wealth of event information and will be regularly updated with the latest event news.

A call for ambient-air, water and ground sources to be included in the definition of renewable energy sources in the draft EU law on the promotion of renewable energy sources has been made by the European Partnership for Energy & the Environment. The primary technology to use these energy sources is heat pumps, and their use will strongly benefit from such an expanded definition of energy sources, combined with the inclusion of heat pumps in the EU Directive.

Lighting and electrical-services specialist Parkersell has a new name, The company is part of Dalkia and has been renamed Dalkia Lighting & Electrical in a move that reflects Dalkia’s holistic service approach across all business sectors.

Ener-G, which specialises in sustainable energy technology, has moved into ground-source technology with the acquisition of Ground Source Solutions, which is involved in renewable heating and cooling energy. The 80% stake in Ground Source Solutions brings Ener-G’s major transactions in the last six months to three.

Daikin’s split and Sky Air air-conditioning systems are now available through Climate Center, following a new arrangement with Wolseley. They will be available through Climate Center’s nationwide network of 51 branches, the largest in the UK.

A Parliamentary enquiry has been launched to establish what ministers, city leaders, property owners and occupiers need to do to cut carbon emissions from the country’s offices, shops and factories. The enquiry wants local firms and political leaders to get involved and support this first public enquiry into the issue.

The LON communication protocol has a history stretching back about 15 years, and is firmly placed as a control technology for future generations, as Ron Bernstein explains.

Traditional approaches to balancing recirculating hot-water systems fail in their task as soon as a tap is opened. They also do not readily permit the satisfactory thermal disinfection of a system. David Corner explains a better approach.

Nic Mallinson reminds us of the dangers of hot water and calls for the wider use of thermostatic mixing valves.

Solar energy for hot water in commercial buildings is becoming increasingly touted as the way forward, says Bob Walsh

Mike McDonald explains how the flexibility and efficiency of central plant in developments such as apartments can be combined with individual control in each apartment.Providing hot water in large-scale projects, apartment buildings, mixed-use developments and specialist housing projects such as care villages, presents some new challenges in the current era of reducing carbon footprint.

David Pepper explains how direct gas-fired water heaters have an important role to play in reducing energy consumption and helping to exploit renewable energy.

An organisation designed to improve and maintain professional standards among employment agencies has been launched by the HVCA. The Building Services Engineering Employment Agency represents a voluntary grouping of employment agencies that supply skilled personnel to contractors in building-services engineering.

Just when you might have thought that the building-controls market had peaked comes growth of well over 20% overall — according to the latest figures from the Building Controls Industry Association.

Richard Ratcliffe (left) of St Martins Property receives one of the first commercial Energy Performance Certificates produced by an accredited CIBSE Low Carbon Energy Assessor, John Field.

Honeywell’s building solutions business (HBS) has won the IP in Security Innovation award for best application for its work at Wembley Stadium. Honeywell was also selected for the innovation award over two other category winners — best software and best hardware. The judges commented that Wembley Stadium is ‘a fantastic example of system convergence, with impressive scale to boot’; it was also described as ‘a world-class example of an integrated solution’.

Inviron has been selected by Alfred McAlpine to design and install the M&E services for two primary-care-trust centres in Stockport. The £10.3 million project will see two state-of-the-art one-stop centres in Woodley and Heald Green replacing the current outdated facilities. Services to be provided by the new centres include district nursing, baby clinics, physiotherapy and nutritional advice.

Guests at the recently opened Ramada Encore hotel in Chatham are enjoying the benefits of air conditioning provided by Ability Aurora II fan-coil units installed by Tandy Engineering Services of Gloucester.

Walls built with hemp will be a major feature of a new building at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales. Hemcrete is a mixture of hemp stalks, lime and a small quantity of cement. It produces less carbon emissions than conventional concrete, owing to the fact that cement is fired at high temperatures, using a lot of energy. The energy needed to make cement accounts for about 10% of carbon emissions globally.

Recycling water used in evaporative condensers at ASDA’s distribution centre in Lutterworth will reduce water consumption and the discharge of water-treatment chemicals. In addition, electricity consumption will be reduced.

A total of 200 m of Vulcathene pipework has been installed to carry chemical waste from sinks in new science laboratories at King’s College School at Wimbledon. Pipework ranging in sizes from 6 mm to 100 mm was used in six laboratories built as an extension to the existing science block.

The energy needed to provide heating and cooling for a new clubhouse for the golf club at St Andrews Links will be substantially reduced following the installation of a new system from Mitsubishi Electric.

Vaillant’s solar domestic-hot-water system has been installed to serve two shower facilities at a Ministry of Defence Establishment in Dorset. They were installed by Southern Pipe Services, whose Dave Dodd says, ‘We use Vaillant products a lot and have completed several solar installation using their system.’

Unpleasantly high temperatures of around 38°C in a London laundry have been reduced by 10 to 15 K following the installation of a Breezair evaporative cooling system. The system for Bates Laundry in Leyton was specified and installed by Cosaf Environments, exclusive UK distributor for the system.

Heating for a new school in Wrexham is provided by ground-source heat pumps serving underfloor heating. It was designed by NIBE Energy Systems and comprises 11 boreholes 100 m deep drilled into the school grounds before landscaping.

Actulite polarised daylight lighting is being widely installed in the offices of the Leicester Mercury newspaper following its success during refurbishment work.

The upgrading of three ventilation systems at Leeds Metropolitan University will reduce running costs by an estimated £25 000 a year, for a capital spend of £47 000. That saving corresponds to 438 MWh of electricity and a reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions of over 192 t.

Oventrop vales have been used exclusively throughout a redevelopment at Rochford Hospital in Essex.

The carbon footprint of the new Walthamstow Academy in London has been reduced by the installation of a 120 kW biomass boiler from Broag. It is fuelled by compressed wood pellets fed from a store on the ground floor next to the first-floor plant room.

When supply problems were encountered with air-conditioning equipment for new offices for a leading company providing temporary staffing solutions, air-conditioning specialist Cool Air Solutions turned to Climate Center for help — and took delivery of six Panasonic wall-mounted units the next day.

Boilers and radiators supplied by MHS feature prominently in the refurbishment of the imposing Land Registry building in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London.

Keston Boilers has supplied a bespoke rig to provide all the heating and domestic-hot-water needs of the engine production facility of Honda Racing Development in Bracknell, which supplies racing engines for Honda Racing and Super Aguri Formula One teams.

JS Air Curtains has supplied and installed a Windbox 18 kW air curtain for the Esprit Store in London’s Covent Garden. It was specified by consulting engineers E&M Tecnica of Surrey.

A combination of controlled natural ventilation and air conditioning is helping Capital Print achieve a ‘very good’ BREEAM rating for its new custom-built premises, where it is moving to after being displaced from the 2012 Olympic site.

Intelligent control panels supplied by Advanced Electronics are at the heart of the upgrade of a large fire-detection system at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. The NIA is one of the busiest large-scale indoor sporting and entertainment venues in Europe. It can seat up to 14 500 people, but flexible seating allows the layout to be adjusted. It also has four car parks.

Hamilton Litestat’s Sheer stainless-steel range of wiring accessories feature in the new Radisson Edwardian Hotel in the Docklands area of London — along with a range of specials that include room status indicators and a door-entry system.