“We must remind people working in building ventilation that what they do is really important and has a direct impact on the health of the public,” said George Friend, chair of the BESA Ventilation Group. “When people go to work in the morning, they want to feel that they are making a diff erence…they want to deliver some value. Our industry does that.” However, delivering that message to a wider audience should be a priority,
according to several speakers who said young people would only be inspired to take up careers in ventilation if the industry shocked people into action, and explained how the problem could be solved. “World Ventilation Day will only be successful if we both highlight the issues and
show how they can be tackled,” said Fox. “Many of the solutions are relatively easy and cost-eff ective to implement – and as well as cleaning up the indoor air can improve the overall performance of buildings to help us achieve our net zero goals.” Professor Noakes said the pandemic had led to greater collaboration with more sharing of knowledge and best-practice about how to make buildings more resilient to the transmission of diseases. “People realise we can’t solve this on our own or by arguing about whose tech is the best,” she said during her keynote address to the recent BESA National Conference when she launched World Ventilation Day. “Good ventilation is part of creating a sustainable and low carbon
environment, by using technology to balance air quality, energy use and comfort. It is critical to making buildings more resilient to health threats including our regular battles with the transmission of colds and fl u around crowded indoor spaces.” She warned that this winter would be challenging because people would be tempted to conserve energy by not opening windows so causing other health problems linked to mould and damp. Professor Noakes, recently appointed as the chair of a new Science Quality
Assurance Group (SQAG) at the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), believes that better regulation and enforcement could be used to help people decide whether to enter a building or not. “Shouldn’t you have the right to ask whether you are organising an event in a place that is healthy and safe?
Purifi cation
However, she acknowledged the ‘real-world complexity’ of the issue and the need to balance multiple factors, including energy, carbon, and ventilation, plus the diffi culty of working out where mechanical ventilation, additional fi ltration or purifi cation systems should be deployed to best eff ect. Many people who took part in events on the day also expressed frustration at the pace of change and said Awaab’s death should shame anyone with responsibility for a building into fi nally taking this issue seriously. “Despite the unprecedented focus on IAQ, we’re seeing very little action being
taken in thousands of buildings around the country. The engineering answers are ready and relatively cheap to implement, so there is no excuse,” said Nathan Wood, chair of BESA’s Health & Well-being in Buildings group. However, one of the challenges is gathering data to support regulatory
change, according to Dr Henry Burridge, senior lecturer at Imperial College London, who leads the Schools Air Quality Monitoring for Health and Education project. “The project looks at air quality in classrooms and its impact on learning
ability,” he said. “Classrooms are unusually densely occupied, so you can use CO2 levels in a classroom to accurately measure CO2 per person.” However, taking a project of this scale to other markets is not straightforward, said Burridge: “We could extrapolate SAMHE fi ndings to offi ces [and homes], but looking to prove the chronic health impacts of IAQ requires decades of evidence. Look how long it took for smoking to be banned, for example.”
www.worldventil8day.com
ViewPoint D
The Lower the Better By Neil Hope, head of technical services at NIBE Energy Systems
o you still see boiler controls left at their maximum by the commissioning engineer or turned up by the customer after you leave? Whilst consumers may
see piping hot radiators as a sign that the heating system is working well, they could be wasting money and unnecessarily increasing fl ow temperatures above what is needed. With the current energy crisis, one key money-saving piece
of advice for consumers is to start lowering their boiler fl ow temperatures. Given the vast majority of condensing boilers installed in UK homes are
combination boilers selected based on hot water fl ow rates, these are often signifi cantly oversized for the central heating demand. Also, if radiators are hot this gives the customer some peace-of-mind that everything is working. However, this means the boiler is often left at or near its maximum temperature. Engineers however, armed with the right knowledge and skills, can support customers to cut costs by discussing the benefi ts and practicalities of operating at lower fl ow temperatures. Condensing combi boilers typically have two temperature settings (one for the central heating and the other for domestic hot water). The central heating fl ow setting can be reduced to 50°C or lower, without aff ecting hot water comfort or increasing the risk of legionella, cutting gas bills by 6-8%. This is also a simple and eff ective method for determining whether a property and heating system is suitable for a heat pump. Lower fl ow temperatures can also slow damage to the heating system. In contrast to the boiler market, the heat pump industry has been advocating
for the installation of low fl ow temperature systems for some time now, ensuring customers can maximise the effi ciency gains and cost savings from their heat pump installations. A new government regulation also advocates for lower boiler temperatures.
The Future Homes Standard (England) aims to deliver heat pump ready energy effi cient new build homes by 2025. Underpinning this is the Part L Building Regulations, which have been eff ective from June 2022, and are the starting gun for decarbonising new build housing. We have also seen Wales and Scotland enter the race with uplifts to their own building regulations. These regulations are driving low fl ow temperature prominence, stating that newly installed or fully replaced heating systems must operate at a maximum fl ow temp of 55°C or lower, and room by room heat loss calculations must be used when sizing space heating systems to ensure heating systems are not signifi cantly oversized. Despite this progress, quality and relevant training for future proofi ng
installers to meet these regulatory requirements is lacking, particularly for low fl ow temperature systems. NIBE recognise this, and that’s why there is opportunity through our leading NIBE Pro installer course for installers to attend the LCL Awards and Chartered Institute Plumbing Heating Engineers Low Temperature Heating and Hot Water in Dwellings Course. The course provides comprehensive training on the latest industry
standards and regulatory frameworks relating to heating design. It also covers requirements for room-by-room heat loss calculations as well as correctly sizing heat emitters, pumps, pipework, and domestic hot water systems. So, you can be sure you’re off ering your customers the optimal solution for their home. Lower is defi nitely better when it comes to fl ow temperatures, so next time
you’re called out to maintain a combi boiler, consider fl ow temperatures, as you could save your customers money, whilst ensuring tthey are heat pump ready.
https://www.nibe.eu/en-gb/installer/what-is-nibe-pro https://www.nibe.eu/en-gb/installer/training/nibe-pro-training-courses
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December 2022
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