Increases in the cost of raw materials have led to Carrier Corporation announcing a 5% increase in the price of all Carrier brand products in the UK.

Exor Management Services has teamed up with the Electrical Contractors’ Association to provide members with an easier route to wider public-sector accreditation and broader recognition of the quality standards that members have already achieved.

10 years ago, the market for chilled ceilings and beams was very much smaller than it is today — and the market will continue to grow, according to Saziye Dickson.

Multi-service chilled beams form a key part of the low-energy solution for a new building at Southampton University. Supplied by Trox for the Treble E (engineering, entrance and education) building, the beams are supplied with chilled water from an absorption chiller with a flow temperature of 14°C and a return of 17°C. The chiller is linked to the recently completed site-wide district-heating and CHP plant.

Growing numbers of services engineers are building chilled beams and ceilings into their designs in the search for more innovative and flexible low energy solutions, says Alan Green.

From reducing the energy requirement for comfort cooling to overcoming the constraints of refurbishing buildings, chilled beams can provide imaginative solutions. John Staunton explains.

Terry Farthing share his views on why the popularity of multi-service chilled beams is growing so rapidly.

To help achieve the highest possible BREEAM rating for a new Government building in Bournemouth, cooling and fresh air are provided by SAS active chilled beams.

Most boiler suppliers and manufacturers offer a biomass option — but what is driving the demand for biomass, and how can you ensure a successful installation? Ian Bradley has some pointers.

The recently opened £30 million Redland Green School in Bristol has its space-heating requirements met by three Broag-Remeha 310/7 boilers installed by Lorne Stewart. These floor-standing boilers were recommended for this particular location for the efficiency and performance and ultra-low NOx emissions.

Glow-worm’s new Ultracom range of high-efficiency combi boilers is available with outputs of 24, 30 and 38 kW. They all have a back-lit and stylishly designed programmer to give complete control and flexibility over heating and hot-water requirements.

Saunier Duval’s Semia Condens combi boiler is available with outputs of 24 and 30 kW and a SEDBUK B rating. They have a stainless-steel recuperator, pipe-connection tails that are clip distance from the wall and a telescopic flue option.

Adding Zenex GasSavers to three condensing boilers in the multi-purpose Plymouth Pavilions has solved under-performance issues that resulted to inadequate supplies of hot water. and reduced overall gas consumption by at least 25%.

10 years ago, wall-hung boilers above 100 kW would have been almost unthinkable, but now they are commonplace in commercial heating installations. Richard Walker explains how the market is changing to embrace smaller boilers in light-commercial applications.

Stokvis Energy Systems has devised a standard specification for its Heatpak packaged boiler rooms. They are available with various heat outputs for rapid delivery to site.

Extensive, indepedent testing of Hoval UltraGas boilers has confirmed that their average NOx emissions are less than 40 mg/kWh. This means that these boilers, across the full range of outputs from 15 to 1440 kW, achieve the full maximum BREEAM rating of three points for NOx emissions.

Peter Roege considers how UN and British climate-change policies impact on the design and operation of boiler houses. affect your boiler house.

As part of the renovation of the fire station at Hove by East Sussex Fire & Rescue Services, a Tuffa Firestop 10 000 litre tank was installed to serve the heating system. It replaces an old steel tank that was inside the building.

As part of the refurbishment of the 4-storey house in Hackney of Tommy Walsh of Groundforce fame, a Keston C55 wall-hung condensing boiler serves the heating system. There are four very large bedrooms and underfloor heating throughout the ground floor. These boilers are room sealed, so they can be installed almost anywhere.

Baxi’s commercial-heating training academy at Erdington in the West Midlands is fully equipped with boilers from Potterton Commercial and water-heating products from Andrews Water Heaters. All the appliances are live, enabling training to be delivered on products, installations, commissioning, servicing and fault finding.

Dr Robin Cotton explains how biomass is providing heating solutions for large-scale applications such as district-heating systems and outlines its future development prospects in the UK.

Vaillant high-efficiency ecoMAX commercial boilers have been installed at Cranford Hose School in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, to replace an old leaking boiler.

Heating boilers in student halls of residence throughout the central campus of the University of Warwick are progressively being replacing with Atag E Series condensing boilers to reduce fuel costs and carbon footprint.

Richard Evans explains why high-efficiency and condensing boilers are still one of the most popular ways to meet the energy requirements for modern heating systems.

UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) has awarded personnel certification to CIBSE Accreditation for its Low Carbon Consultants Scheme.

LG is planning to boost its research-and-development division by 70% during the coming year and its sales staff by 40% — and is promising a series of launches of environmentally considerate equipment.

Balfour Kilpatrick has been awarded a £3.1 million contract to provide M&E services for the new headquarters of South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service in Sheffield city centre.

Faced with having to cancel a wedding reception when the temperature pressure relief valve in its H&V system cut out, a large Devon hotel eventually managed to source a valve from the Bristol branch of WF Electrical, having failed to find another supplier that could deliver that day. The part was delivered by motorcycle courier so that services could be restored, including catering facilities.

Nu-Way’s burner training courses for 2008 include the maintenance and service of blown gas burners and the operation of pressure-jet oil burners and controls.

An intrepid team of 28 from project and cost consultancy Davis Langdon has raised around £25 000 for charity by taking part in the Grim Challenge at Aldershot training barracks. The challenge consists of an 8 mile race around the very muddy assault course, involving running, crawling and wading through waist-deep water. The water was particularly deep for this challenge at the beginning of December as it was the wettest year the event has taken place.

As part of its partnership with Darlington Education Village, the north-east office of building-services provider SES attended a careers fair for year-10 pupils. The aim of the partnership is to minimise the inherent skills shortage in the region in the engineering and construction industry and to contribute to the professional development and improvement of employment opportunities of young people in the area. SES also aims to highlight the wide-ranging and exciting career opportunities available.

To address new challenges in electric heating, Heatrae Sadia has restructured its sales and marketing teams.

Legrand has prepared a brochure on compliance with Part M of the Building Regulations (access to and use of buildings). Steve Willmore, Legrand’s regulations and standards manager, explains, ‘Part M has been around for a considerable length of time, but as it’s only applicable to applications for Building Regulations submitted after 1 May 2004, it means that only recently has it begun to have a major impact on the market.

Wavin Plastics has launched a series of literature covering its Genius Osma underfloor heating products for commercial and industrial applications. There are five Osma underfloor heating systems.

The British Refrigeration Association has produced a practical guide to the F-gas Regulation to inform the refrigeration user supply chain of its obligations. It covers the following aspects of the regulation.

There are 10 new air curtains in the 2008 catalogue from JS Air Curtains. The company says its range is now the widest in the UK and includes air curtains for all applications, from economic electric units up to powerful industrial units for doorways up to 5 m high.

Information of all Elkay Electrical products, in-cluding its new Energyrange, is now available on the company’s new-look web site.

Elta Fans Building Services has launched the fourth edition of its Select catalogue, bringing together a wide range of fans and associated ventilation products. The catalogue includes Elta’s stocked range of axial, mixed-flow, centrifugal and roof-mounted products for next-day delivery.

PHS Waterlogic has launched a new web site covering its mains-fed water dispensers. It provides information about these products and an ordering system.

‘The solar heating and design guide’ from the Heating & Ventilating Contractors’ Association offers comprehensive information on the specification, design and installation of solar heating systems. It runs to 162 pages and has been compiled to assist professional heating engineers with hot-water systems that principally use heat energy from the Sun.

The new web site of Schiedel Rite-Vent has sections specifically created for specifiers, heating engineers and merchants.

Off-site construction of building services facilities speeded up the build programme, reduced site traffic, and minimised on-site health and safety risk for a prestigious London office development.

Security of power for the communications room of Royal Caribbean Cruise Line is now provided by a standby generator system from Scorpion Power Systems. Specified by consultants Meinhardt UK and purchased through BW Interiors, the generator will automatically support the company’s system if there is a protracted power outage.

Five Breezair coolers installed in the headquarters of Fortis Bank’s headquarters in Brussels has reduced temperatures by around 8 K. Previously, temperatures on the top floor of this building in the centre of Brussels could reach over 34°C. The Breezair units are installed outside the building, with cool, moist air delivered to the open-plan offices via textile ducts.

Technology developed by Sensus Metering Systems will enable 2500 households in Oldham served by district-heating schemes to be billed for the heating energy they use, rather than being billed a fixed amount. Some households are already seeing their heating bills halved compared to the previous unmetered supply.

Simmtronic has won a contract to supply fully addressable lighting controls for a new building in London’s Canary Wharf. Every luminaire in the 28 000 m2 of 20 Churchill Place will be under DALI control. In addition, all emergency luminaires will incorporate DALI control inverters to make possible automatic testing. The contract was awarded by PIP Electrics.

Fläkt Woods has completed an air-conditioning upgrade project for the national distribution centre of Baxter Healthcare in Northampton, which handles medical products. Following an inspection of the existing system, Fläkt Woods proposed two EU air-handling units to replace the existing units.

AmbiRad Vision radiant-tube heaters have replaced an oil-fed warm-air system in the factory of steel-products manufacturer Troax. Not only do these heaters provide zoned heating in this 3500 m2 high-roof building, but they also control condensation to keep stored steel dry and prevent rust.

With no mains gas available for a remote building in the Highlands of Scotland and difficult access for vehicles to deliver oil, a ground-source heat pump was installed to provide heating and hot water.

The installation benefits of Flex Connectors’ solutions for lighting connection and control have resulted in the use of its Flex 7 range throughout the new £20 million single campus of Tresham Institute at Kettering.

The latest methods of installing building-management systems by using local distribution boards serving inverter-driven plant and localised outstations has proved highly successful for the redevelopment of Unilever House in London. This approach eliminated the use of centralised motor-control panels.

To improve control of the heating systems and save energy of Voysey House in Chiswick,

The new headquarters of BBC Scotland is one of the latest projects to use Kooltherm pipe insulation and insulated pipe supports from Kingspan Tarec Industrial Insulation.

Technicut, which designs, makes and supplies specialist rotary cutting tools, has overcome the problem of summer temperatures in machine shops reaching 32°C by installing Breezair evaporative cooling. Maximum temperature is now 26°C.

Keraflo KP float valves have been installed on large pipes at Queen’s Hospital, Burton on Trent, to ensure the simultaneous filling of dual on-line 1500 litre cold-water storage tanks. Four valves serve four pairs of tanks that replace eight single tanks which had reached the end of their operational lives. Each new pair of tanks is installed in a separate block and supplies all hot down feed and domestic-cold-water services.

The installation of Fläkt Woods EC air-handling units has saved installation time and cost for contractor Lorne Stewart working on contracts for schools in Kent by eliminating the need for separate heat-rejection plant. They utilise the extract airstream for heat rejection from a built-in condenser.

To provide reliable control of ventilation for corporate-hospitality lounges at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, ABB variable-speed drives have been installed to control fans in the air-conditioning system

The installation of a high-efficiency cooling system to serve the John Lewis store on London’s Oxford Street has provided more cooling capacity with no increase in electrical demand.

Nu-Way modulating gas burners provide 6 MW of heat to serve the space-heating and DHW requirements of the new St Pancras International railway station in London. The XGN 3000 burners have been fitted into three Hartley & Sugden SCP750 Class 1 boilers.

Quick-response energy-saving heating for a major new neighbourhood centre on London’s South Bank is provided by Jaga low-water-content Mini Canal trench heaters and Strada radiators.

The payback on energy savings alone for a new lighting system in the automated distribution centre of Wincanton in Corby is estimated at less than two years. In addition, the longer relamping cycles of Chalmor Brilliance light fittings will reduce maintenance costs, shortening the payback to 1.6 years.

Passive infra-red occupancy switches designed and made by Danlers have been installed in the Merchants Academy School in Bristol. Scheduled to open soon, this school comprises seven buildings to provide facilities for over 1150 pupils. They switch on a connected load automatically when an area is occupied and switch it off again when the area has been vacated for a chosen period.

Marston’s Inns & Taverns is installing building-management systems from Trend Control Systems in 550 pubs in England and Wales to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and enhance comfort.

Air conditioning for Derby City General Hospital, which is being redeveloped by Skanska under a £333 million PFI project, will be provided by McQuay air-handling units and chillers.

Discreet underfloor heating in a mining museum in Northumberland provides modern comfort for visitors without distracting from the machinery and other trappings of a working colliery.

An inaccessible basement plant room called for a lateral approach for installing a new heating system for one of the City Of London’s landmark buildings — 10 Queen Street Place, EC4, now occupied by European law firm S. J. Berwin.

In designing a new management centre at the Grade I English Heritage listed Bicton Arena, for Clinton Devon Estates, consulting engineers FaberMaunsell had to take account of strict planning restrictions, as well as the client’s requirements for a sustainable building. The result is a building that exceeds the requirements of Part L 2006.

Grundfos Pumps has formed a partnership with Adey Professional Heating Solutions to make available the MagnaClean Industrial magnetic filter to remove the sludge that creates poor system performance.

Dunham Bush has made modifications to its Avant Garde range of fan convectors to enable them to operate with lower flow and return temperatures to maximise the energy-saving potential of condensing boilers.

Carlo Gavazzi’s latest MID-certified (Measuring Instruments Directive) energy meter offers a cost-effective solution where single-phase sub-metering is required. The EM10-DIN has anti-tamper features so that it can be used for billing, cost allocation and sharing measurements to conform to EU and UK regulations.

The Series G range of enclosed moulded-case circuit breakers from Eaton Electric is suitable for the protection and control of large commercial and industrial loads. The range extends from 63 to 630A in single-pole, 3-pole and 4-pole variants. There are also versions with integral residual-current protection.

Pegler Yorkshire’s Terrier range of products is now available with push-fit connections and has been developed with the new-build market in mind.

Nu-Way's EcoPart ground-source heat pumps are water-to-water units that use a closed collector loop, either borehole or ground loop, to extract energy from bedrock, ground and lake sources.

An adjustable bypass valve from Altecnic for central-heating systems prevents the pump working against a closed circuit when all control or thermostatic radiator valves are close. The Eres valve ensure a flow recirculation proportional to the number of valves closed, while limiting the maximum differential pressure generated by the pump.

A stainless-steel version of Honeywell’s D06 compact pressure-reducing valve is now available. The original bronze version has sold over 15 million units.

Johnson Controls has launched a range of pressure switches for refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat-pump applications that conform to PED 97/23/EC Cat IV.

Tricool now offers a bespoke service for hydraulic packages on skids to go with chillers. A wide range of options is available.

Tricool now offers a bespoke service for hydraulic packages on skids to go with chillers. A wide range of options is available.

A new range of bespoke air curtains from JS can be fitted with many different mounting or suspension options to tie in with the architecture of an entrance. They have an attractive round design and are available in stainless steel or any RAL colour.

Ansell Lighting’s Galaxy Micro PLC fluorescent downlight uses high-frequency control gear as standard to achieve high standards of energy efficiency.
The design is based on the addition of interchangeable accessories to the standard fitting to provide many types of lighting solution. These accessories include a choice of trim bezels and drop glasses, as well as decorative frosted cone glass and wallwash attachments. Category 2 cross-blade louvres and reflectors can be used to control the level of glare over computer workstations.
The range also includes IP44 clear and frosted covers, enabling these fittings to be used in bathrooms, toilets and food-processing areas.
Remote emergency packs are available for all luminaires.
Using a fully faceted reflector makes possible a high performance luminaire with maximum glare control. The use of high-purity aluminium further enhances the lighting output to maximise photometric performance.
All variants require a 95 mm hole and are secured by self-locking fixing clips. Each fitting is prewired with 3 m of mains flex.

Dimplex has improved the design of its recessed ceiling heater to make it smaller and more flexible to install.
AC heaters have an output of 3 kW, with a half-heat setting for economy and a fan-only setting for air circulation in summer.
These heaters are supplied with a 600 mm-square egg-crate grill, but they can be used without it to give a ceiling outlet size of 300 x 600 mm — narrow enough to be incorporated into a slim bulkhead over a door. The white air-outlet panel ensures the heater looks just as good when installed without the grille.
These heaters can be installed using drop rods, as before, and also attached directly to the suspended ceiling from above, in the ceiling void. This could be an option for many ceilings, since these heaters weigh just 11 kg.

Among energy-efficient boilers available from Heatline is the SEDBUK A-rated Solaris range.
These condensing combi boilers have pre-mix burners and outputs of 30 and 35 kW.
They are compact in size (720 x 430 x 330 mm) and weigh only 40 kg, but can deliver over 14 l/min of hot water — said to be one of the highest in the industry.

Airedale has improved the efficiency of its EasiCool range of close-control air-conditioning equipment by using R410A and introducing several new options. They include EC fan upgrades, eco-friendly hot-gas re-heat, compact energy manager, fully modulating thyristor-controlled electric heating and a suction throttle valve that can modulate down to 50%.
These units provide outputs from 6 to 60 kW. There are 38 air-cooled DX models, 38 water-cooled DX models and 34 chilled-water modules. All are available in upflow or downflow configuration.
Hot-gas re-heat efficiently reheats cool air during dehumidification by using heat that would normally be rejected by the condenser. The optional Energy Manager offers full power monitoring with the additional option of a fieldbus card for intelligent interaction with the micro-processor and BMS.
Tandem compressors improve EER at part load, and electronic expansion valves improve operational efficiency by up to 30%.
EasiCool also has intelligent, variable-head pressure control to ensure efficient operation of the condenser fans, upgradeable condensers and optimised evaporator coils.
Units can pass through a standard door in one piece, and there is full access for service from the front.

Redring has designed its Selectronic Level Access Pump to meet growing demand for wet rooms and care-sector installations where level shower access is required and gravity drainage is not possible. It is said to be the only shower that fully meets the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act and also provides complete flexibility in siting. The design is also endorsed by the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

An EER (energy-efficiency ratio) of five is claimed for Toshiba’s Super Daiseikai split inverter air-conditioning system. Indoor units also have a newly designed cabinet with a flat front panel.

An effective way of containing dust in work areas on site is provided by Protec’s ZipWall.

Heatrae Sadia has upgraded its Megaflo HE and Megatech solar thermal unvented storage cylinders for hot water to significantly reduce heat loss. Other improvements are the inclusion of a wiring centre and drain valve to assist installers.

Branches of BSS Industrial, a leading distributor of pipeline and heating solutions, has seen sales rise sharply following its A1 accreditation with pipe manufacturer George Fischer (GF). Seven BSS branches began the accreditation partnership with GF just three months ago.

Intelligent Fire Panels from Advanced Electronics are at the heart of a new fire detection system at Bristol’s newest flagship school. The £33 million Redland green school will house nearly 1400 students.

Gateshead Housing brought over 2500 homes up to ‘decent homes’ standards for Gateshead MBS last year, and reduced energy use and greenhouse gasses is one of the organisation’s key targets. As part of this work a pilot installation of solar heating has been installed on a property in Birtley using an Elson hot-water unit.

Lowick community hall is reaping the benefits of its new air-source heat pump system, which is being used to power Signature and Sterling fan convectors from Smith’s Environmental Products. The renewable-energy product, installed as part of a project organised by National Energy Action (NEA) and funded by ScottishPower brings environmental and economic benefits to the community.

The British Board of Agrement (BBA) has issued its first ever certificate for a renewable-energy technology — the Clearline range of roof integrated solar-water-heating panels from Viridian Solar.

WF Electrical has formed a partnership with Danfoss Randall to sell Danfoss control valves as part of its recently launched HVAC stocking portfolio. The complete range of control valves and actuators is now available through WF’s branch network.