St Pancras, London.

This 137 year old prestigious Victorian building in the heart of London is a fantastic example of 18th Century architecture; In 1876, the doors opened to The Midland Grand Hotel, accommodating 300 guests in luxury and splendour for an extortionate rate of 3 shillings and 6 pence, per night.

In 1922 the hotel was taken over by London, Midland Scottish Railway, whereupon in 1935 it was converted to offices for British Rail.

Due to the threat of the station being amalgamated with King’s Cross, and the demolition of Euston in 1962. Sir John Betjeman took up the station's cause and in 1967 the station and hotel to were awarded Grade I Listed Building status.

The St Pancras Chambers were used as BR offices until 1985 before falling vacant in the late eighties. In the early nineties emergency safeguarding works were undertaken to combat roof leakages and general decay.

Finally in 2005, Manhattan Loft Corporation were granted permission to convert building into 68 luxury apartments and one 5 star hotel.

Penthouse Suite

A.C. Preou Limited were delighted to be chosen by Firmco Limited, the building contractor along with the Clients' design team to carry out the mechanical services to the most prestigious new dwelling on the complete site, The Penthouse Suite.

Our contract involved the modernisation of the turreted three upper floors of the central main building, floors six to eight. The project was sure to be challenging and require careful planning to achieve a good fit for all the services. We were ready for the challenge.

This contract required a fully integrated team approach, with detailed planning by all to make sure the works were installed in the tight time frame, as the only way into the site until the main building is complete was by external builders lifts which were due to be removed by end of July 2009.

The original building went up to the 6th floor and the upper floors were formed from the old tank room, the tanks would have been massive, all fitted in between the large timber trusses that support the steep pitched roof.

The building is a Grade 1 Listed Building, every part had to comply with the Listed Buildings Act, and we were not allowed to use heat for pipe jointing or use any tools that would generate sparks.

All the new water plumbing pipework was installed in Polypipe Pressfit fittings. The new soil and waste system was installed in mostly fusion welded jointed HPDE Polypipe drainage system. Chilled water was installed with solvent welded Girpi Kryoclim pipe, fittings and valves. Condense discharge system was installed using Terrain Solvent welded pipe and fittings.

The new 7th floor houses the new plant either side of the central core dwelling area. Access to these plant areas is through floor trap access panels on the 8th floor, ascending into via access ladders. Even these trap doors had to be carefully co-ordinated with the underfloor electric heating panels.

The services we installed are;

A boosted hot and cold water system served by electrode electrical boilers, the domestic hot water is stored in two Megaflow indirect cylinders.

The twin pumped water booster was dismantled and moved into the plant room in small pieces and re-assembled in the final location.

The cold water storage tanks were a real challenge, just to get them in place, we had them constructed in two sections each, even the drip tray was sectional. The water to the tank passes through a fully automatic water softener to give all outlets conditioned soft water, other than the cold mains to the sinks.

The hot and cold water has been fitted without any joints concealed in the structure, the only joints are in the plant rooms and at the terminal fittings. This created much more pipework than a normal system, where a bathroom would normally have three pipes the system installed has eleven to each bathroom. The system has mini valved headers in the plant rooms with separate pipes to each outlet and circulation leg.

Due to the uniqueness of the building a leak could not be allowed to go undetected. Therefore a complete leak detection system was installed by our specialist, so that if a leak should be sensed on the wiring pads or cables, an alarm panel lights up showing the building owner where it is.

A completely new drainage system was installed connected at 5th floor level to the rest of the building drainage.

A full chilled water system to the dwelling fan coil units and two main Air Handling Units is fitted. The main building Chillers are due to be installed later in 2010 when the rest of the lower floors and Hotel are due to be operational.

The 7 & 8th floor Ventilation systems are completely separate. They were extensive and proved a real challenge for us to get into the various spaces. Both, Air Handling Units had to be dismantled, moved into position and re-assembled for best fit. To transfer air for the 8th floor, parts of the vent system were run in Kooltherm insulated ducting under the 6th floor.

Now it’s installed it seems a miracle that we found room to get the system in place.

New toilet ventilation systems were installed along with Kitchen and Laundry extract, where possible these were connected to some flue liner ducting installed before we were involved on site.

Since the Chilled water is not due to be installed until late 2010 the client required the AV system to operate without overheating we have installed a high duty adjustable up to 40A/C Hr supply and exhaust to the new AV room to suppress the heat generated by the extensive AV system.

At high level on the 8th floor we have installed an Airius anti stratification fan. This unit draws the heat from the high vaulted and beamed open space ceiling void and blows the air gently back down. The whole system is fully automatic controlled from a main control panel in the AV room.

We are extremely honoured to have been involved in the mechanical engineering, renovation and regeneration of this beautiful example of British history and most prestigious building. We too have become part of its history.

R J Mitchell School, Hornchurch, Essex.

This school is very special and was named after the designer of the famous World War Two Spitfire fighter planes.  The school keeps the name of this great designer to the fore, and display paintings and parts of the Spitfires.  Each year an annual event is held in R J Mitchell’s name.
The school is situated on the former RAF Hornchurch Aerodrome, which was a key quick response fighter station in the Second World War.  Part of this airfield has now been landscaped as a Country Park, and some of the old parts of the fighter station can still be seen.

It was an privilege to be chosen by the L B Havering's Consultants Mouchel Parkman to install the first Biomass wood chip fuelled school heating system to be fitted in a Havering school.
The contract was valued at £100,000 and involved working in the summer shut down period removing the oil fired boiler plant and hot water cylinder, fitting in place the fully automatic Broag Biomass boiler, a new high efficiency gas fired water heater, and a stand-by Broag 115Kw condensing gas boiler, new controls and pumps.
We also carried out all the builders works including the erection of the Biomass store, decorations and all specialised trades needed for a complete finished project.
The old oil tanks were drained degassed and removed.  Then the oil store was converted into the pellet store.  This required a steel retaining frame around the inside of the walls, a timber framework was then installed with upright timbers then covered with marine ply to line out the store, the bottom panels tapered in to feed the pellet fuel into the boiler worm drive.  The storage capacity is about 21 tons, which means very few refills are required each year.  A key issue in the design and installation of the bunker is that the fuel must be kept dry, the bunker must be 100% weather proof.
Delivery of the fuel is very interesting, as the pellets are "blown" down a flexible hose under air pressure from the delivery lorry into the 80dia fuel supply pipes.  To check the fuel level in the bunker, a series of viewing windows are arranged down one side.  These are glazed on the bunker side and removable screwed caps externally, it's very easy to see the fuel level at any time.  A good maintenance free simple system.

The carbon footprint of this system is very small.  The Biomass boiler automatically delivers burnt ash into a container on the front of the boiler, the amount is minimal measured against the volume of the input fuel, a fraction of 1%, and as pure potash is great for the School’s garden!

We are very proud to have installed this pilot scheme, our 40 plus years of practical experience demonstrated to our client that they had made the right choice by inviting us to install the system.  The system is performing beautifully the school are delighted with the end results. If you would like to look over the system please contact our office and we would with the School’s permission be happy to show the system to you. You can also see a brief demonstration of this boiler on YouTube by clicking here.

 

Spa Green Estate London EC1,

This was a real challenge with very careful planning needed.

We acted as the Principal Contractor for this major boiler room refurbishment. The total value was in excess of £145K.

Spa Green Estate is an estate of 3 blocks of council flats with 245 homes. The existing boiler plant needed urgent replacement to be done at the first opportunity, this happened to be the winter period.

We were to take on the duty of planning to satisfy the need to maintain the heating and hot water all times, the client could only allow the plant to be shut down twice for 8 hours.

Three new Strebel boilers were installed with a combined output of 1400Kw, the existing Nu-Way gas burners were converted and re-used in the new boilers,

Most of the boiler room 150 dia primary pipe was replaced to make way for the installation of a plate heat exchanger, this converted the system into two separate systems, primary and secondary.

All the pumps were replaced with modern inverter controlled Grundfos twin pumps, the controls were completely updated to include a new control panel along with a BMS system to allow the client to monitor and control the system from their head office by a telephone link with a personal computer, the system functions and set points are displayed on the computer screen.

This was all done keeping at least one boiler running.

 

Copenhagen School Islington London.

We acted as the Principal Contractor for the clients appointed consultants Beveridge Associates. We replaced the schools heating system of radiators and circulation pipe work. We also installed to the IT room Air Conditioning. These works were a major task as the building is listed as grade 2.  The total value was in excess of £145K.

Special attention had to be given to planning the works to replace each wing of the building separately to avoid the need for the school to suffer complete heating shutdown.

The was a challenge to our engineers and builders as in places the walls were a meter thick and we were not able to cut away the existing structure, we had to follow existing building profiles.

Our works involved all the installation needs for the complete project, building works, decorations electrical works as a complete package.

The works were completed on time and within budget. The school is delighted with the end result.

 

Acton College, Acton, West London

On this contract we are sub contractors for Leadbitter Construction Limited builders. The building is a College, with a new build leisure centre, fitness suite and construction wing along with refurbishment of the existing areas on the ground & first floors. The upper 3 floors of the building were in constant use, the systems had to be installed keeping the upper floors operational.

The systems were designed by the clients consultants Haywards Property Services, our contract value is £1.3 million.

Particular care is needed on this contract as the main purpose is to provide training facilities for teaching, gas fitting, plumbing, heating and general construction trades, in effect tomorrows construction operatives!!.

The new works involved many different disciplines in our trade, gas fitting on pipes up to 150dia, heating on pipes up to 200dia, complete new hot & cold water systems using GF plastics, extensive ventilation systems, fire suppression systems, air conditioning, dust extraction etc.

We reused two existing 800Kw gas boilers and installed a new Viessmann condensing boiler for the main boiler room. The boiler room pipe work extensively modified to install new hot water buffer tanks and plate heat exchangers etc, new pumps and controls. A completely new plant room with 4 No wall mounted Viessmann condensing boilers, plate heat exchangers, plumbing water and drainage services for the fitness suite. 

The end result was a first class facility to train tomorrows fitters.

 

Civic Centre, Harrow,

We are the principal contractors for this contract which is the replacement of a large Air Cooled chillier supplying chilled water to the Civic Offices air conditioning system.

The system was designed by the clients consultants Inglton Wood and our contract value is £185k. 

The works involve the dismantling of the old plant into small parts, and safe removal. The new chillier was 300Kw duty and weighted about 5 tons. The weight and physical size needed to be carefully considered. We dismantled part of the plant room front wall to allow the unit to be passed into the plant room, we employed a specialist heavy plant handling sub-contractor to move the chillier and hoist up to its final location.

The plant room pipework was modified with new pumps fitted to suit the new system.

Alterations were carried out to the air intake system, special acoustic louvers were designed and fitted to replace the front of the plant room housing the chiller, this suppressed noise breakout to a whisper

A new controls system was also installed with BMS links to allow remote control of the complete chillier plant.

The clients were very pleased with the end result.

 

Brecknock School, London N1

We are the principal contractors for this contract. The overall contract is a boiler room refurbishment, and installation of a range of LST Radiators. with new circulation pipework over 3 floors. The constraints of this contract was the need to be done within the summer school holiday’s period to insure the new plant installed was operational for hot water on the schools return and have the heating going by the winter period.

The system was designed by the clients consultants Emanuel Smith Partnership and our contract value is £130k. 

We removed the old plant and completely replaced all the existing installation in the plant room. 2 new Clyde Combustion boilers were installed with total load of 460Kw, new flues, pumps, controls, a new hot water calorifier was also fitted.

During the school holidays we also replaced part of the radiator heating system in three halls.

The client is delighted with the new system, it was installed on time and within budget.

 

Basildon Hospital, Essex, Post Graduate Extension Block

On this contract we are sub contractors for Cadman Construction Limited builders. The new building is an extension from the existing teaching facility for Post Graduate Medical Students.

The system was designed by the clients consultants, Haywards Property Services and our contract value is £125K.

The installation was a new LPHW heating system, hot and cold water services and ventilation, including works to an existing Air Conditioning system. The heat source was from the main hospital LPHW heating connected the new build system with a header system, new pumps and controls.

Again the client and our main contractor customer are very pleased with the system, which was installed to the programme and within budget.

 

Saltwell Street, London E1

We acted as the Principal Contractor for this boiler room refurbishment. The total contract value was £55K.

This was a challenge due to the very limited space in the 1st floor plant room and the need to keep the existing system operational until the new boilers were installed. We even had to overcome asbestos removal which was found once we started on site, very careful planning needed to avoid a long shut down.

The boilers supply heating and hot water to an estate block of 19 council flats.

The existing boiler plant needed urgent replacement to be done at the first opportunity, this happened to be the winter period.

We were to take on the duty of planning to satisfy the need to maintain the heating and hot water all times, the client could only allow the plant to be shut down twice for 8 hours.

The existing pipework was adapted and replaced to allow for two new Potterton boilers to be installed with a combined output of 140Kw, they were fitted complete with new pumps and controls This all done keeping at least one boiler running.

The client and tenants are very happy with the new system, which was done on time and within budget.