2008 December

There’s more to air quality than filtering out airborne particles. The relative humidity of the air also makes a big difference but it needs to be controlled cost-effectively, says Roger Palamarczuk.

The benefits of ultra-violet air purification enjoyed in the UK are set to arrive in Europe. Bill Anderson explains.

Good indoor air quality must be considered alongside good air distribution or room air movement, says Terry Farthing of Trox UK.

Part of the Building Schools for the Future programme is the provision of adequate ventilation. Nygel Humphrey discusses how ventilation can be provided effectively and efficiently in schools - and other buildings.

Ventilation hygiene remains a resilient market despite the slowdown in the general economy. And the reasons are not hard to find, says Gary Nicholls.

Supplying sufficient fresh air to a building for maximum occupancy is wasteful of energy if it is not fully occupied. Harry Swinburne explains how monitoring CO2 levels can reduce that energy consumption.

Only 200 t of refrigerant R22 was reclaimed last year, just 12% of current demand, according to the British Refrigeration Association — leading Ray Paice of Eaton-Williams to warn that unless users have built up their own bank of refrigerant, they might find that using recycled R22 is not an option.

Rehau has delivered over 10 000 m of its Rauthermex pre-insulated polymer pipework since it installed an unwinding machine at its UK plant in Blaenau, North Wales — enough to stretch to the top of the nearby Mount Snowdon.

Inviron apprentice James Boyle has been named best apprentice in London by training provider JTL. He received his award at Wembley Stadium, where Inviron was also presented with the award for best apprentice employer. Another apprentice, Jason Faulkner, finished third in the competition.

Great Portland Estates has won the British Council for Offices innovation award for the redevelopment of 180 Great Portland Street in London. This Edwardian block has been reconfigured into 10 000 m2 of offices, with careful architectural consideration incorporating a number of sustainable construction qualities.

GSH Group, which provides facilities and energy-management solutions internationally, has won the silver Green Apple Award for its environmental best practice. The award was in recognition of its fleet-management project, the GSH vehicle-tracking system.

Kershaw Mechanical Services has proved its green credentials by being awarded the ISO 14001 environmental standard.

Sales of commercial boilers, above 44 kW, have shown an 8% growth in annual sales to exceed 20 000 units, reports the ICOM Energy Association. This increase continues the trend of the previous year and is attributed to additional workload during 2008.

A busy RAC09 exhibition is promised, with over 90% of space sold by the end of November. The show covers air conditioning and refrigeration and is at the NEC from 24 to 26 February.

Two graduates working for Faber Maunsell have received prestigious awards.

Newcastle College has revealed plans for a new sixth-form college as part of its £250 million investment in campus facilities. Designed by RMJM, the 13 000 m2 building will have state-of-the art facilities for over 2000 students. It will be on the same site as the multi-award-winning Performance Academy and the landmark Lifestyle Academy and is RMJM’s fifth building for the college since 2002. Work is due to start in February 2009, with the college scheduled to open in September 2010.

Construction group Rok has raised £40 000 for The Prostate Cancer Charity through a nationwide charity football tournament. Teams from Rok offices and their suppliers throughout the UK participated in the 5-a-side Rok Real Man Cup to aid the charity.

Carrier Corporation has acquired Concord Controls of Birmingham, one of the UK’s leading independent building controls companies.

Team Honeywell has been delivering winning performances in the world-cup events of the Uniroyal Fun Cup series this year. The cars have bodies styled like a VW Beetle but are real racing cars with a tubular chassis, PR body, central driving position and mid-mounted engine with rear-wheel drive. Races usually last three to six hours, with an hour qualifying beforehand. Grid positions are normally made up from a ballot.

Danfoss Heat Pumps, formerly ECO Heat Pumps, has moved to purpose-built premises to cater for the growth of the business and its expansion plans for the future. The new premises provides over 1000 m2 of office and warehouse space on Parkwood Business Park in Sheffield.

Balfour Kilpatrick has been awarded a £3 million M&E services contract for a new purpose-built hospice at Stobhill General Hospital in Glasgow. The company expects to start work on site early in 2009, and the project is due for completion towards the end of the year.

As building-services engineers for 5 Aldermanbury Square in the City of London, Hilson Moran won two categories in the British Council for Offices awards. They were the national award and the London regional award in the category for commercial workplace buildings.

Energy-rating accreditation body Elmhurst Energy Systems reports substantial positive feedback from clients using an Internet-based energy-performance calculation package. The ptLifespan-SBEM is described by operations director Dr Gavin Dunn as an improved calculation package with several advantages over other products.

A housing developed in Chadderton, Oldham, has hot water provided by Vaillant auroTHERM solar panels and auroSTOR cylinders. Holroy Developments is using this equipment in 23 homes with three to five bedrooms and plans to install more Vaillant solar products in other housing developments in the town.

The flow-rate of Douglas Delabie’s TempoStop basin tap is now pre-set to just 4 l/min. Combined with automatic shut-off, water and energy savings of 70% can be achieved.

40 m2 of solar-thermal panels now heat the 25 m swimming pool at Oxford Brookes University for most of the year. Supplementary heat from the existing boiler is called on for only a limited number of dull winter days.

Multi-service chilled beams address sustainable issues and are one of the most energy efficient terminal air-conditioning systems. Terry Farthing discusses these feature and comments on the increasing popularity of this system.

Short-circuiting the water-supply cycle by harvesting rainwater is an effective way to relieve demand on the mains supply, as John Laming explains.

Control and monitoring company RDM has installed two 20 m-high wind turbines at its Glasgow headquarters. They can deliver up to 30kW of electricity, more than enough for the night-time load, and enough for 60 to 70% of the day-time load. The company had to overcome concerns from the local authority about possible interference with radar serving Glasgow Airport a few miles away.

Significantly reduced carbon emissions can be achieved on apartment developments with centralised heat generators supplying interface units in each apartment. John Cooper explains.

Natural ventilation designed and installed by WindowMaster has been used in the Wexford Base of the Environment Protection Agency in Southern Ireland.

Wavin has extended its range of systems for harvesting and using rainwater with units of 2000, 3000 and 4000 l. Using rainwater for non-potable purposes in a typical house can reduce mains water consumption by up to half and make an important contribution towards achieving the requirements of Category 2 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

To control state-of-the-art geothermal and solar technology in the latest development in the PaddingtonCentral development in London, Integrated Control Systems has designed and installed the building-management system. It will monitor and control and also provide information on the efficiency that the entire system is achieving.

Businesses need to embrace every opportunity available to them if they are to achieve cost and carbon savings says John Durbin.

SAV Modules offers a service to create mini district-heating stations combining a range of technologies, including heating pumps and CHP. Fully engineered custom-designed solutions can reduce carbon emissions by up to 30% and slash energy costs.

Contributing to the energy efficiency of the new Suttie Centre for Teaching & Learning in Healthcare in Aberdeen is the use of a wide range of Grundfos pumping equipment. This £21 million 5-storey complex has recently received a BREEAM 2008 award and includes a range of energy-efficient Grundfos pumps, as well as pressurisation sets and a highly efficient Hydro MPCE booster set.

A host of green-engineering features in a new building for Marlowe Academy at Ramsgate is under the control of a Trend BMS designed and installed by Trend Partner company Total Control Services.

Cal Bailey shares his views and experiences of the importance of planning for sustainability from the outset of a project rather that adding features later.Green engineering is intrinsic to any sustainable development and needs to start from a blank sheet of paper, rather than becoming merely a bolt on at a later stage of a project. Considering green measures at the upfront planning stage is the only way ensure the best use of natural resources in every element of work in order to achieve the lowest possible carbon emissions for that building.

As part of the extensive refurbishment of the Seafood Restaurant of Rick and Jill Stein in Padstow, Elta was called on to provide extract power for three canopies in the main kitchen. One difficulty was that, being typical of many Cornish buildings, the kitchen is halfway below ground level and there are 16 guest rooms above the restaurant — so noise levels were a big consideration.

Polypipe Ventilation has modified the production of its Domus range of flexible hoses to a solvent-free process that reduces the environmental impact of the process and the risk of skin problems to end users.

Jasun Filtration is one of only 10 European manufacturers of air filters accredited to the Eurovent fine-filter programme. The scheme aims to guarantee product performance in a market where an ever-wide range of filter media is available to manufacturers.

The Defensor Mk5 humidifier from Walter Meier uses a patented solution to the problems of limescale formation commonly associated with steam humidifiers.

Air-source heat-pumps are a well tried and very cost-effective way of harnessing renewable energy — according to figures that Darren Manley of Daikin UK shared with Ken Sharpe.

The UK should follow the example being shown by Germany, which is taking radical steps to stimulate its already relatively healthy market for micro-generation and renewable technologies, according to leading British sustainability experts.

Michael Hamill explains why an evaporative wet cooling system is the ultimate ‘green machine’.

Controlling the indoor environment using natural ventilation is generally regarded as ‘greener’ than air conditioning — but how effective is using solar energy to give it a boost? Ken Sharpe was given the chance to look at a project at BSRIA.

The total value of new construction projects in the UK has fallen by 21% over the last year, according to the November edition of the Glenigan Index.

Engineers entering the HVAC industry are being given the opportunity to develop new skills and expertise by a joint initiative between Daikin UK and the College for North West London.

The impact of the current economic crisis on small and medium-sized enterprises in the construction industry has been highlight to Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform.

Graham Atkinson of heating contractor K. R. Martin has continued his regular installation of Broag-Remeha Quinta boilers with the installation of two Quinta 30 boilers at the new offices of Brewer Timothy Taylor in Keighley. They were installed alongside a Remtank SS180 hot-water cylinder with associated valves and fittings. The boiler was fitted with a Rematic 2945 integral control panel.

An arson attack on 60 flats being built by Clayfield Construction at Normanton in West Yorkshire was prevent from getting out of control by an early warning from the Tag Guard Fire Alert system used at the site.