With carbon-dioxide emissions being 50 to 60% lower than even a gas-fired condensing boiler, ground-source heat pumps have a key role to play in a low-carbon future. PROFESSOR TERRY WYATT explains why he believes their time has arrived.

A new standard for calculating the performance of underfloor heating systems is not only simple but very accurate. BRIAN SENSECALL explains how it works.

Forget the heating of village and church halls of your youth. Gas-fired convector heaters have advanced enornmously — as BILL SINCLAIR explains.

Heating remains one of the biggest operational overheads for industries throughout the UK. The Government’s Climate Change Levy has added an extra cost to all fuel bills. Switching to energy-efficient space heating technology will minimise fuel consumption, benefit the environment and, most importantly, reduce costs. DAVID ROCK of Ambi-Rad Limited explains.

Technological advances in recent years enable electric underfloor heating systems to provide optimum comfort and be economically viable, says SIMON BRODERICK.

An underfloor heating system designed for use with raised access floors has been developed by Osma. The system can also provide cooling.

Faced with the need to replace three cast-iron sectional boilers with ages from 12 to 30 years, Bryan Yates, site manager with Braintree College in Essex, embarked on a feasibility study with consulting engineers Atkins Management Professional Services. The aim was to identify new boilers that would achieve efficient performance with low emissions, ease of maintenance, responsiveness ot varying space-heating requirements and the ability to be easily retrofitted to existing pipework.

A ground-source heat pump provides space heating for the Eco visitor centre in Southport, which is the terminus for the park-and-ride service and a showcase and teaching centre explaining sustainable construction and renewable energy. Over 500 000 visitors a year are expected.

Underfloor heating and cooling served by a Calorex heat pump is providing an energy-efficient solution for a suite of offices in Aylesbury.

The Unimat range of commercial boilers from Controlled Flame Boilers is designed to provide energy-efficient solutions for larger heating projects. PM5 safety requirements are included as standard items.

A range of six wall-hung condensing boilers from Clyde Combustions covers outputs from 58 to 180 kW. All have a maximum operating pressure of 6 bar.

Hamworthy Heating has launched a range of stainless-steel condensing boilers designed for use in modular arrangements or singly. Ansty boilers have two return connections, one low temperature and the other high temperature, allowing separate circuits to operate at different temperatures, such as underfloor heating and DHW. The lower-temperature return circuit enables the energy-saving benefits of condensing operation to be realised.

Underfloor heating systems in five new pre-school nurseries in the Isle of Thanet are providing safe heating without the use of cumbersome and costly LT radiators and without taking up wall space.

Throughout the life of a building, from conception to occupation, and beyond, on-line tools provide scope for collaboration in a way that has not been possible before. GAVIN DALE explains.

Graphisoft’s CADLink program for the design of HVAC and electrical services is based on a 3D database that tracks all elements with which a building is put together. Using Graphisoft’s Virtual Building model makes it possible to design, administer and manage a building throughout its entire life cycle.

Facilities managers today are responsible for the building’s performance, and their uncompromising relationship with their occupiers and service providers can only be satisfied if mechanical and electrical skills are there in the first place, says MAURICE TIDY.

PETER WOODS provides a 7-point checklist for selecting a company ot carry out portable-appliance testing

CHRIS KENNEALLY shares his views and experiences of making outsourced facilities management a profitable and successful experience.

Providing maintenance care for historic sites such as the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich generates many challenging demands. Modern equipment is shoehorned into basement areas, there is a range of disparate building services, and architectural features and decoration demand great care when working.

Dalkia has won a further extension to its 5-year contract to provide comprehensive facilities services to The National Assembly for Wales. In addition to the principal buildings in Cardiff, the contract includes nearly 60 locations throughout Wales. The total estate is some 100 000 m2, mainly offices.

Some 600 outlets outlets of travel agent Going Places in the UK and Ireland are covered by a service-and-maintenance package provided by mobile engineers from Eaton-Williams Service.

STEVE LEONARD advises on standards, guidance and product selection for the effective, efficient and safe ventilation of commercial kitchens.

Is it my imagination, or has more been said by politicians and written in the Press about climate change and global warming than usual during the past month? Perhaps Modern Building Services started the ball rolling in the last issue when we suggested that since most experts now agree that climate change is inevitable, there is probably little point putting effort into designing services to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

BSRIA has boosted the capability of its test facilities with the completion of a new 230 m2 laboratory. It complements the existing 810 m2 laboratory, which can test over 30 types of building-services products, and offers the industry independent accreditation services and expertise for product development, certification and performance verification.

The £6.5 million contract for M&E services for the PFI scheme at Burnley General Hospital has been won by the Manchester office of Inviron.

The first retail development to be certified under the new BREEAM retail scheme is Merry Hill shopping centre in the West Midlands. It was assessed by the sustainable-development group of FaberMaunsell for its existing operations in May and achieved a score of ‘very good’.

A near 40% increase in sales for the 2004 air-conditioning season for LG has been attributed to new inverter products and a massive demand for the Art Cool range of designer-style wall-hung interior units and standard popular models such as cassettes.

Two performances of ‘Tosca’ at the Royal Opera House in London went ahead thanks to careful planning by Hills Electrical & Mechanical for the lifting of new standby generators at the nearby BT in Covent Garden and the closure of 200 m of Bow Street for a whole weekend recently. The road closures around one of the West End’s busiest tourist destinations were necessary to enable the giant crane to be assembled by a second crane before manoeuvring the generators into position.

The development of the workforce in the building-services contracting sector has been highlighted by HVCA president Mike Taylor as the single theme binding together the key issues affecting the future of the association and its members.

A 27 000 m2 extension for the Wellcome Trust genome campus outside Cambridge represents the largest single application of Carrier Global chillers in the UK in recent months. Eleven 30 Series chillers, two dry coolers and 600 unit coolers will provide 7 MW of cooling for the first phase of this project. The order is worth about £1 million.

Business is booming for chimney and flue specialist A1 Bridge Flue Systems, with a record £1.75 million-worth of orders placed in June and July.

To raise awareness of engineering as a career choice among 14 to 16-year-olds, engineering consultancy Buro Happold has launched a new website (URL below).

A multidisciplinary appointment on a new £4 million research facility for the University of Newcastle upon Tyne has been awarded to White Young Green. It will house the university’s first magnetic-resonance (MR) scanner for clinical research. Based at Newcastle General Hospital, the scanner will be used to build up an internal picture of the body without using X-rays. This should allow the integrated clinical and basic research team to make substantial progress in diabetes, cancer, heart disease and dementia. The team will also be able to expand its understanding of how various body functions work.

Transport for London has awarded a contract for cleaning grease-extract systems at over 20 Transport for London and London Underground sites with staff catering operations to Indepth Hygiene Services.

With evidence of the growing use of Dutch auctions, the HVCA has embarked on a campaign to resist this unregulated practice.

New research commissioned by the Department of Trade & Industry provides a template for how UK buildings can be adapted to cope with increasingly hot Summers — one of the main effects of climate change. The research was carried out by Arup, and the full recommendations will be published in the Autumn as a CIBSE technical memorandum.

Pump manufacturer Armstrong has restructured its UK operations following the rapid integration of its sales teams, product lines and business systems with those of Armstrong Holden Brooke Pullen.

integrated controls for an air-conditioning installation at Stansted Airport is said to have saved tens of thousands of pounds in customised software routings, wiring and additional controls.

Vent-Axia’s capability as a comprehensive single source for fans, air-handling modules and accessories has led to the company’s equipment being specified and installed in the new Maidenbower Secondary School in Crawley, West Sussex. It is the first of three similar projects for new schools in the area, the others being Ifield and Thomas Bennett.

The first UK installation of Daikin’s R410A mini VRVII-S air-conditioning equipment serves a cooling load of 109 kW for the new Wood House commercial complex at Woodlingdean in East Sussex. Developed by Westridge Construction at a cost of £1.8 million, the 2-storey complex on the South Downs is U shaped and zoned into four self-contained areas on each floor with a view to multiple-tenant letting.

Kingspan’s pre-insulated KoolDuct system can be installed three times faster than sheet-metal systems — according to research by consultants Bucknall Austin.

The problems of providing both central switching and some local control for lighting circuits supplied from different distribution boards has been solved for JJB leisure centres by Hannan Associates using Hager’s Tebis bus-based system.

To provide comfortable conditions in exercise areas of a gymnasium where a low ceiling made the atmosphere unacceptable, textile ventilation ducts have been installed vertically in structural columns and fed with conditioned air via ductwork in the ceiling.

To meet the demanding environmental control requirements of the National Portrait Gallery in London a range of industrial control hardware and software is now used to manage building services. The hardware and software from Rockwell Automation is part of a £38 million investment programme. It includes Allen-Bradley logic controllers and motor-control gear, as well as a Rockwell Software Active Display Server supervisory control and data-acquisition system.

A technically challenging project involving the design and installation of new plant and controls to operate alongside existing refurbished equipment has been completed by Integrated Control Systems.

Design style, ease of installation and performance are billed as the main features of the Icon range of domestic ventilation fans introduced by Airflow Developments.

Continuous supplies of hot water can be delivered by a plate heat exchanger from Beeston Heating at 99% efficiency. With primary water at a nominal 82°C, these units raise cold water from 10 to 60°C.

Bitzer is now stocking and distributing SWEP heat exchangers for air-conditioning and refrigeration applications. These plate heat exchangers are typically up to just a tenth the size of shell-and-tube heat exchangers.

Hep2O pipe-in-pipe systems are now offered with colour-coded outer conduits to indicate whether the enclosed pipes are carrying hot (red) or cold (blue) water.

Fulton Boiler Works offers a range of vertical steam boilers for many hospital applications. They can be supplied as packaged and skid-mounted systems or stand-alone.

BP Solar’s Poly 3 Series of PV solar cells over 75 W are now supplied with white Tedlar, thus improving their performance as the modules run cooler, which means more energy over the life of a system.

The Standesse range of air curtains can be used on doorways up to 12 m wide and 4 m high by joining six units together and regulating them from one controller. They are available from JS Air Curtains.

The launch of the new Memstyle range of socket outlets is complete. There are 800 variants, including some unique and innovative products that acknowledge the increasing use of IT equipment in commercial, industrial and residential premises.

The design of a new series of electrothermic actuators for the automatic on/off control of valves on radiators, fan-coil units and manifolds is based on an analysis of the failure mode of similar products. 22C actuators consist of only a few components, and they are made using modern techniques to produce an overall robust design and reliable performance. They are available from Watts Martin Orgee.

SF Detection’s SF350 series of carbon-monoxide detectors for domestic applications are now approved by CORGI. These detectors have also recently achieved approval to BS 7860.

Wireless radio switches from Beckhoff that do not need batteries and which can interface with building-management systems are available from Hayes Control Systems.

Resetting Actionair’s latest range of Fire/Shield dampers after routine testing is a single-handed operation.

For pressure testing R410A air-conditioning systems to the requirements of EN378, Pendle Refrigeration Services supplies the GA 750 nitrogen regulator with an outlet pressure of up to 50 bar. For convenience, it comes with a 1/4 in male flare outlet connection, with the standard connection available to order.

The ability to use any combination of Merlin Gerin or Telemechanique devices in Merlin Gerin’s Prisma Plus switchboards gives end users tremendous flexibility. Devices can include miniature circuit breakers, moulded-case breakers and control devices.

Fixed- and variable-speed multi-pump booster sets from Armstrong Holden Brooke Pullen are designed for a wide range of cold-water applications.

To identify the optimum time for replacing carbon filters, Emcel Filters has developed a carbon-life prediction service, which is free to Emcel customers. Replacing filters too late results in loss of filtration efficiency; replacing them too early costs more than necessary.

Controls-peripherals specialist Sontay has expanded its UI500 custom-designed user interface devices. Sontay is responding to the needs of architects, who increasingly require aesthetic solutions and uniformity between electrical services, lighting control and air-conditioning. The UI500 series includes semi-flush-mounting temperature and humidity sensor elements to avoid the need for unsightly detectors.

Trane’s VarioTrane range of variable-speed drives can be used in a wide range of plant incorporating fans and pumps to control the speed of motors and reduce energy consumption — while at the same time improving performance compared with constant-speed systems.

Heatmiser’s Eclipse control system for radiant heating comprises a black-bulb sensor designed to respond to radiant heat, giving a more accurate measurement of how warm a space feels. Up to 10 radiant tubes can be controlled in a single zone.

Mitsubishi Electric has launched a range of air-conditioning units for computer rooms, laboratories and other areas where strict control of humidity and temperature is essential.

Pressurisation equipment to maintain a minimum set pressure in sealed heating and chilled-water systems has been introduced by Autron.

To help the acquisition of accurate power measurements against the backdrop of harmonic distortion, noise and transients and sags and swells that are generated by electronic equipment, BSRIA Instrument Solutions offers simulated calibration of single-phase, 2-phase and 3-phase power measurement in any combination.