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OPINION


I’VE SEEN THE FUTURE – AND IT’S BIM


circumstances, and systems need to be designed to suit the building, with work being carried out at the same time. Underfl oor heating can be


a good solution, giving low temperature gradients. But unless the fl oor is being replaced for other reasons, the total capital cost can be high. Reusing existing fl oor ducts


by installing fi nned tube and under-pew heaters can be a good way to fi nd space for the heat emitters, but care must be taken to prevent the pew timber from being damaged by the heat. I have looked at biomass


boilers on several sites and, with the RHI payments, they look viable but, with the capital cost being many times higher than a conventional boiler system, parishes have found it diffi cult to commit to. Churchyards are often very


quiet places and the noise level of some heat pumps can be intrusive – and to get the best from them, low water temperatures are required. For the amount of hot water normally used in a church, an electric water heater would be suffi cient. A number of churches have


been fi tted with air-based plenum heating systems in the past, but it can be diffi cult to fi nd a suitable space for the plant. The last thing you need to


do to a church is heat it up quickly as this can damage the delicate fabric by causing rapid changes in space humidity and temperatures. These changes will cause moisture to evaporate on the wall surfaces leaving a residue of salts. The best way to run the heating in this type of building is continuously with a set back of temperature when the building is not being used. Keith Dodd CEng FCIBSE


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Palace preening I read with interest the article on the Palace of Westminster (CIBSE Journal, January 2014) and I’m afraid there may well be a bit of an error. It implies that little has been done since the 1980s. I was heavily involved in what


was known as the PDVN project for more than 10 years during


the 1990s, where approximately 80% of the Palace’s offi ce space was fi tted with up to six Cat 5e data outlets for both telecom and data-use – along with the complete rewiring of small power and lighting circuits – while providing the automatic fi re alarm and voice alarm systems and repairing the historic fabric. For the new systems to work,


two central data hubs and four extremely large fi le-server farms were created, with all the associated resilient infrastructure. The spend on that project ran


into many millions during that decade and every item of work was carefully recorded for the O&M manuals. The refreshment departments also had major refurbishments, as well as the passenger and goods lifts. A building like this will


always drain resources, and making them more effi cient will challenge the best engineers. But remember, the vast majority of accommodation in the 1830s-60s was residential and large areas were still used for sleeping. James Walker, IEng FIET MILP


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The performance gap is a huge embarrassment for the building services industry, but Ruskin’s David Fitzpatrick thinks he has seen a better future


Fifty years ago, science- fi ction guru Isaac Asimov


predicted how the world would work in 2014. Not surprisingly, the author best known for I, Robot got a lot of the details wrong – but he was right on the button with many of the key issues. He talked about energy use


and predicted we would be largely nuclear-powered with support from massive solar farms; he thought we might all be living underground to mitigate the impact of climate change; and he predicted the dominance of computers and wireless gadgets. So what about


the next 50 years? We will certainly not be able to keep producing buildings that fail to meet client expectations and use more energy than they should. Even if the shale gas revolution means energy costs come down at some point in the future, the rocketing global population will force us to be more resource-effi cient. Far too many buildings disappoint – even new, apparently cutting-edge ones. This is not a technical thing


– we are not still waiting for something to be invented. We have the right people (although we could do with more of them). And we have some excellent technologies. It is the delivery process that lets us down. We need a new ‘culture’ that


allows us to better focus our engineering expertise in the right areas and to ensure future buildings are operated sensibly and sustainably.


February 2014 CIBSE Journal 19


And that new culture is building information modelling (BIM) – although I would prefer to call it building information management, because the secret is ensuring the right people have the right information at the right time. The potential benefi ts include buildings that are properly designed before construction commences because the entire project team is working together and communicating fully before any engineering ‘work’ happens. Everyone is buzzing about


Without standard BIM templates, we are


rudderless


BIM – hardly a day goes by when I don’t receive an invitation to a meeting on the subject – but few actually address how it will work in practice. Manufacturers are still working in the dark because they


haven’t been told what is required of them. Without the standard templates that underpin BIM models, we are rudderless. The future is upon us and,


unless we shape BIM fully and quickly, I fear another 50 years of unstructured project planning and supply-chain chaos.


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