WATER SYSTEMS
system can be contained within a single floor during refurbishment, as the pipeworks run in the ceiling void of the floor you are refurbishing, rather than needing to access the floor below.” Andrew Hay added: “While the Royal Cornwall project was our first UK installation of a Jets vacuum drainage system, we believe the technology’s numerous benefits will be rapidly recognised by UK healthcare estates and facilities management and infection control personnel once they get familiar with it. Not only does a Jets vacuum toilet take just one litre to flush, compared with (‘typically’) 6-8 litres with a gravity toilet, but the system can also significantly improve the patient/staff experience and benefit infection control, with odours and pathogens ‘sucked’ into the toilet by the vacuum, rather than being aerosolised.”
Plans for scientific trials Recognising, however, that it will take scientific evidence to convince infection and prevention control and estates and facilities personnel of the system’s effectiveness, and particularly its efficacy in containing/preventing the spread of pathogenic aerosols, Otter Vacuum Systems plans soon to conduct a trial to verify the system’s performance in these areas, using a specially assembled test rig at its Downton base. For this it intends harnessing the expertise of Professor Sohail Khan, Professor of Sustainable Infrastructure at Loughborough University’s School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering. Andrew Hay said: “While we are keen to secure scientific trial data that verifies the Jets system’s ability to contain pathogens in toilet and washroom environments, we will also be highlighting how it can substantially reduce water consumption.” Jets’ own data, contrasting the water used by a vacuum toilet and a ‘conventional’ gravity toilet, based on 6 flushes per day per person, by 5,000 individuals over a full 365 days, in fact indicates an annual saving of 54,750,000 litres (based on an average-sized 6-litre cistern).
The Jets 610 is a floor-mounted stainless steel toilet for demanding applications.
Engineering and maintenance benefits
Alongside its hygiene and water-saving benefits, Andrew Hay highlighted some of the Jets technology’s practical benefits – from an engineering, construction, and maintenance perspective. He said: “For example, the Vacuumarator pump – which creates the vacuum, macerates the sewage, and discharges the waste in a single pass – is, to our knowledge, the market’s most compact, efficient, and reliable vacuum generator for sanitary systems; it is highly efficient at transporting any combination of black and grey water under vacuum.” My interviewee’s view was that the first vacuum pump, invented and manufactured by Jets in 1982, was ‘revolutionary’ even then; since then Jets has continuously developed and refined the technology, and expanded the range of available pump capacities. Andrew Hay elaborated: “Thus if supplying, say, a large acute hospital with a sizeable network of vacuum toilets and grey water collection tanks, there is really no limit to the number of appliances that can be served. Several Vacuumarator pumps can also be assembled in larger modules for higher performance, improved capacity, and added redundancy.
Space savings
“In addition,” he explained, “the Jets system’s use of 50 mm, rather than the more usual, 110 mm pipework, enables
space savings of up to 80 per cent, as the smaller diameter pipework means pipes can be run through ceiling and wall voids, and, equally, that any openings are considerably smaller.” Jets explains that pipes can also be routed at, or around, ducts and other ‘obstacles’, while vacuum pipework can be installed ‘at a later stage than traditional gravity piping’. “The plumbing is also more flexible,” said Andrew Hay, “since you no longer need depend on gravity for the toilets to work, which means the vacuum system can transport waste vertically.” The Jets technology – with the dimensions and capacity of the Vacuumarator adaptable to the user’s requirements – is designed for use with the wide range of toilets and urinals produced in a variety of ‘styles’, – in both sanitary porcelain and stainless steel – by the Norwegian firm. All can now be supplied by Otter Vacuum Systems to UK healthcare facilities. Jets vacuum drainage systems are also designed to be easily expandable, a process the company says entails considerably less disruption for healthcare engineers or outside contractors than, for example, extending a large acute hospital’s traditional gravity- fed system.
A little ‘history’
Having considered some of the Jets vacuum drainage technology’s main selling points, Andrew Hay and Nicky Brown moved to explain how they came to market the technology, before giving me a more in-depth look at the system’s ‘workings’, and some of the key practical considerations for installation. Andrew Hay explained: “I first came across vacuum sanitation technology while running a mobile toilet hire fleet. I subsequently designed, developed, and had manufactured locally, a one-man portable toilet cubicle to go onto the hire fleet. When we launched the ‘Flexiloo’ in 2005 – it harnessed Jets technology, as I needed a compact, yet efficient vacuum system – sales went through the roof. I had in fact bought vacuum equipment
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August 2018 Health Estate Journal 47
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