www.heatingandventilating.net
Tall buildings g
Big difference with small tech
Russell Armstrong, managing director of RA Tech UK, discusses how a small piece of technology could make a big difference to the installation and maintenance of heating and plumbing systems in high-rise buildings
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uilding tall may be a solution to a lack of space but with it comes a different set of issues and challenges, particularly for those involved in ensuring they’re fit for purpose, safe and efficient once in use.
The trend for tall
With space at a premium, particularly in our cities, it’s little wonder that the trend to build tall continues to gather pace. The latest annual Tall Buildings Survey by New London Architecture revealed that London alone has a pipeline of more than 500 tall buildings either in planning, approved or under construction. With a rapidly changing skyline and city shape, questions remain about the contributions that tall buildings bring to the capital and beyond. With more than 100,000 homes set to be in a tall building, we need to ensure that tall buildings really address today’s housing challenge; meeting the goals of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 while providing comfortable and affordable living.
With such big goals in sight, it can be easy to opt for equally big solutions, but sometimes it’s the combined efforts of small changes that make the biggest difference.
Helping at height
In high-rise developments, boiler and cylinder pressure relief valves could traditionally only be terminated compliantly by being run down the outside of the building or via internal service voids to basement level, where each would be terminated over an open-trapped gulley. The costs of everything from time to labour and materials for everyone involved in delivering the design of the building were great and something we sought to reduce with the development of our flagship product, the hotun dry-trap tundish.
The hotun provides a single product solution to compliantly route relief valve discharge to a waste pipe, within each dwelling of tall building. We see this
Depending on the water temperature, detect will signal one of three alarms, giving an occupant a clear signal to contact the engineer to fix the fault before it escalates into something more serious, or expensive. The alarm also allows the engineer to rule out a number of possible faults before attending site and arrive with the right tools first time, preventing the need for multiple visits.
Reaping the benefits
as a game-changer in the approach to installations but also to the ease of maintenance for those charged with the care and upkeep of a building’s heating and hot water system. Bringing the D1 termination point back inside the dwelling makes the point of discharge visible and accessible, giving an easy way to check for historical discharges as necessary while also keeping it safe.
Breaking the silence
While the hotun has made it easier to diagnose relief valve discharge, without frequent monitoring it’s a warning sign that can go unnoticed. Many building occupants don’t know the function of a tundish or what the presence of water in the valve signifies, so if they were to notice, it’s unlikely they would contact the building’s services engineer or facility manager. This was something at the forefront of our design process when developing the new hotun detect. The detect is a clip-on sensor specifically designed to fit onto the side of the hotun dry-trap tundish, making it both retrofittable and suitable for a range of new installations. Sitting in a reservoir above the rubber seal in the dry-trap tundish, a battery-powered electronic sensor detects when water has passed from the relief valve, into and then through the tundish, triggering both a visual and audible alarm.
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The benefits of early detection go beyond preventative maintenance. Both boilers and unvented cylinders will vent water through a relief valve to avoid the system going over pressure or temperature in the event of a system fault. The volumes of water may vary greatly between the two systems, but with the knowledge that 100,000 homes are set to be in a tall building, this represents a lot of relief valves which could be silently dumping water to drain. Drawing attention to the activation of the relief valve prevents litres of water being wasted. While cutting carbon emissions is a primary target for industry, protecting resources as precious as water is still critical. In the case of unvented cylinders, the water discharged through the relief valve will often have been heated to up to 60˚C. IIn the event of a reoccurring failure, there is no telling how many times the relief valve may discharge before anyone notices water dripping via the tundish – even with a vigilant occupier or landlord undertaking annual service checks. The hotun detect will warn on the first occurrence, allowing for faster diagnosis and repair of the fault, saving the energy used to heat the water and reducing the carbon footprint of the building.
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While they may be small in stature, new advances such as hotun detect make sense and can contribute towards a much greater goal within the UK’s ever- growing number of tall buildings.
www.heatingandventilating.net
May 2020
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