Open systems are good news for the end users of building-management systems, as ROB HEMMERDINGER explains.

The inclusion of a procedure in a new ISO/EN standard for specifying the functional requirements of a building-automation and control system will, believes KEITH CHURCHES, lead to better systems.

HOWARD LEIGH appraises the benefits of the BACnet open protocol.

Hayes Control Systems has introduced the Beckhoff building-automation solution to the UK market as exclusive distributor.

Using Ex-Or’s MLS Connect Digital system, electrical contractor N. G. Bailey was able to install the managed lighting system for a major refurbishment at a further-education college more quickly and easily than with conventional wiring and connection methods.

Honeywell has launched a new standard in open building-management solutions that is network based and freely programmable. Called Excel Web, it hosts core building-management applications, including traditional heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, energy management (e.g. optimal start/stop, night purge and maximum-load demand) and supervisory functions for lighting, shade, comfort and energy metering.

Total Control Services of Tonbridge is one of the first members of Siemens Building Technology’s HVAC-solutions certified-partner scheme for Desigo PX controllers.

Passive infra-red (PIR) occupancy detectors from CP Electronics are used as part of the lighting-control system for The Edge development in Manchester to reduce the amount of wiring to light switches and the cost of its associated installation.

ABB claims to be the first drives manufacturer to offer support for the BACnet communications protocol. It is now a standard feature of the company’s HVAC drives.

The first applications of Priva’s XML-based capability for building management in a TCP/IP installation are at Marks & Spencer stores in Rotherham and Kidderminster. They are also the first contracts with Marks & Spencer.

Trend has taken steps to increase the use of radio-based temperature sensors with the introduction of the TW/S wireless-space-temperature sensor and receiver. On most applications, this technology is said to represent a lower-cost solution than traditional hard-wired sensors.

The growing need for flexibility in office lighting, especially in response to changing layouts, is addressed by Luxmate’s Flexis lighting-management system.

A £300 000 lighting-management system has been installed as part of the recent major renovation of the Empress State Building near Earls Court in London.

When the Imperial War Museum recently redesigned and upgraded its lighting-control system, Helvar was specified — the company which supplied the original system. Following a lengthy design and installation process, the Imagine system provides the museum’s main atrium and galleries with state-of-the-art lighting control that creates an enriched experience for visitors.

The design, supply and installation of a building-management system for Festival Place in Basingstoke involved the siting of 50 panels around the centre and linked to the BMS to provide conditioned air to public spaces. Integrated Control Systems carried out the work for public and communal areas in this regional shopping destination. The BMS also controls heaters over entrance doors, fire- and smoke-safety equipment as well as back-of-house metering rooms and other facilities

York International has combined its expertise in control systems and air-conditioning equipment in the SmartPac concept of integrating components such as chillers, air-handling units, fan-coil units and VAV boxes.

The latest version of Coster’s software for its building-management products adds site mapping and automatic time synchronisation to its capabilities.

DAVID CHURCHER and JOHN LANGMAID explain how to achieve deliver value engineering through functional analysis and whole-life costing.

ROY SHEPHERD gives direct answers to a range of questions about value engineering.

Co-operation between suppliers, installers and the customer can drive down costs and result in better-engineered and cost-effective solutions says RICHARD WHARTON

Several landmark projects have demonstrated the potential of multi-service chilled beams, as we found from TERRY FARTHING and GUY HUTCHINS.

One of the major players in the market for speed-controlled pumps has been looking at the benefits of this technology in chilled-water air-conditioning systems.

By building every Gas 310 ECO boiler to a customer’s specific requirements, Broag optimises the value of each boiler by including only those options required and positioning of components.

MIKE DUGGAN reports on the completion of a project for rating the seasonal efficiency of chillers.

VRF air conditioning is at the heart of LG’s plans to treble its UK turnover by the end of 2007.

R410A continues to replace R407C with its use in a new range of chillers offering up to 760 kW of cooling.

York’s YFC-E range of fan-coil units are designed for UK market requirements. The design philosophy was aimed at countering the problems of on-site installation, so factory prefabrication includes the fitting of standard York controls or those requested by the client. Delivery can be achieved in three to four weeks, or earlier for standard units. All units are factory tested

When the new Part L of the Building Regulations comes into force at the end of 2005, the energy performance of new buildings should improve by about 25%. The consultation period has just ended, and it is clear that the skills of building-services engineers will be put to the test in reducing carbon emissions arising from heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting by a further 10% over the Part L that came into effect in April 2002. Combined with a requirement for renewable energy systems, the stage would seem to be set fair for a reduced energy consumption for buildings and, hence, lower carbon emissions.

Terry Wyatt, chairman of CIBSE’s Carbon Task Group, has responded to new research data from Hawaii showing an acceleration in the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with the statement: ‘Climate change is a reality, and these new findings suggest that the increase in global temperature is itself having the effect of increasing the carbon-dioxide concentration in the atmosphere over and above than produced by human activity.

New construction orders in the year to August 2004 rose by 2% compared to the previous 12-month period, according to figures from the Department of Trade & Industry — despite a 25% slump in infrastructure orders for the period.

Bookings for the industry’s double show at NEC from 1 to 3 March — RAC 05 and H&V 05 — are reported to be surging ahead.

The service arms of leading Novar brands Trend, Gent and Bardic have been integrated into one building-services maintenance company. Called Novar Services, it provides skilled support for building owners and users to ensure the continued effectiveness of environmental controls, fire systems and emergency lighting. The new business starts with a customer base comprising over 20 000 sites.

Air-movement company CCL Veloduct is moving into motorcycling racing by sponsoring a 3-man team competing in this year’s KRC Endurance Championship. The rider of the 1000 cc Suzuki GSXR is Austen Reid (aka Scud Missile), group sales director of Vent-Axia. Austen and his Vent-Axia team will compete in a series of five endurance races, each lasting six hours — or until the last rider comes off.

Building-services contractor Inviron is adopting a new approach to disposing of its redundant computers by making them availble to disadvantaged communities in the West Midlands, instead of recycling them.

Baxi has brought together five operating divisions as Baxi Commercial. The new company has a turnover of £100 million a year and a workforce of 600.

David Hills, chief executive of contractor Hills Electrical & Mechanical, gives the ‘Oscar’ treatment to innovative ideas in the industry at a dinner at Birmingham Botanical Gardens last month. The event recognises and rewards contributions to innovation, sustainability and whole-life costs.

Aceri has completed its acquisition of Cymap’s building-services software and associated business software.

With the order to supply air conditioning for the world’s new tallest building, Carrier is now cooling eight of the 10 tallest buildings in the world. At 508 m high, the Taipei Financial Centre in Taiwan has taken over the title from Petronas Towers (452 m).

Opened last month by HRH The Princess Royal, the new Fleet Headquarters of the Royal Navy adjoins a Site of Special Scientific Interest — and is itself a building combining the latest in energy efficiency and environmentally conscious design.

BSRIA has won a £208 000 contract to help achieve best-practice levels of health and safety, quality and productivity performance of the Arts Quarter construction project in Chelmsford.

Fourteen air-conditioning contractors from LG’s ‘Love golf’ tournament qualifying round in the UK are off to Portugal next Spring for the finals in Quinta de Lago, one of the world’s premier golfing resorts. There were two UK tournaments — one for the south at Donnington Grove and one for the north at Breadsall Priory. In all 120 air-conditioning contractors competed.

The Avanti programme to encourage collaborative working on construction projects has agreed the second of its core projects. It is to support the design team for St Helens & Knowsley NHS Trust on the £305 million new development that will rationalise its healthcare facilities at Whiston, St Helens and Newton. Avanti is a Partners in Innovation Programme supported by DTI with £750 000 over three years; it is a programme of live construction projects designed to achieve and measure IT-enabled business improvements at project level.

SummitSkills, the Sector Skills Council for building-services engineering, is looking for nominations for the fifth annual National Training Awards for the HVACR industry. Celebrating the best young apprentices and engineers throughout the industry, the even at the British Library on 16 March, will all award new management talent and present bursaries to enable students to further their education in the sector.

With the formal consultation process for the new Part L of the Building Regulations closing this month, MIKE DUGGAN highlights its scope and the issues raised.

The use of plastics-based pipes for above-ground drainage systems aids the spread of fire, according to tests carried out in a German research laboratory.

Not only did the McQuay Easdale AHUs for the new Weill Cornell Medical College near Dohar in Qatar have to be designed to fit the technical specification of the building, but they also had to meet the constraints of standard shipping containers. This resulted in the 23 Easdale systems being shipped in 112 containers, each 40 ft long and represented a £1.6 million order for design, supply and commissioning.

Secure Web Services has addressed the problem of high temperatures affecting its servers by installing a Breezair evaporative air-cooling system in its new headquarters at Telford. The system provides cooling at a fraction of the cost of air conditioning. The central plant is is installed at the rear of the building, with ducting to the server rooms and offices.

A sophisticated ventilation system to maintain a negative pressure of up to –100 Pa has been installed by Hills Mechanical & Electrical for an advanced animal-health laboratory in the south of England. It is part of a services installation valued at £2.5 million, half the total cost of the project.

Colt International has completed its first water-source heat-pump installation in the UK to provide energy-efficient climate control to the newly opened cardiology day unit at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow. The project follows over 50 installations in Europe, particularly Holland and Germany.

The application of integrated building-management technology at Oxford Brookes University has had a dramatic and positive impact on the management of the site.

Mitsubishi Electric’s TG2000 control system is making possible sophisticated control of a major VRF air-conditioning system at Birmingham Business Park in Solihull.

To facilitate future service and maintenance for two extensions to a hospital in Hampshire, Oventrop has supplied all the mechanical-services valves, TRVs and isolation and gas valves for the new boilerhouse. Oventrop also supplied boiler ancillary and gas-supply valves.

Valve manufacturer Hattersley is working on its largest-ever single order — supplying control valves for Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport.

All the pump requirements of the world’s first lifeboat college, opened recently by the Queen, are met by a range of equipment from Grundfos.

Fully speed-controllable motors and metal impellers are features of the SlimVent series of plate and cased axial fans introduced by Helios.

A combined service valve and flow regulator from Aquaflow prevents taps nearest the supply receiving more water than they need and delivers a good service to all users on a pipe run. Water savings of 25% are often achieved.

Four choices of indirect/direct lighting distribution are offered by the Thorn Zep T5 luminaire. They range from 40/60 to 84/16 up/down lighting.

Rinnai has moved into large-scale water heating with the launch of the Infinity HD series of mains-fed continuous-flow water heaters.

Vent-Axia now offers a range of remotely controllable variable-duty split air-conditioning units.

Technical support for Watts Industries’ RPZ valves is now available from four qualified staff. These accredited testers can provide support by telephone and in the field to other accredited testers, installers and distributors.

By replacing the metal layer to prevent oxygen ingress into underfloor heating pipe with a PEX C layer, Viessmann’s Vitoset system achieves a number of benefits.

A 4-gang 2way option has joined Hager’s Ashley New look range of plate switches. The rockers are wide and finger friendly with a positive switching action and silver contacts.

The launch by Vaillant of the high-capacity 35 kW ecoMax 635 boiler completes the company’s range of high-efficiency condensing boilers. Its output is sufficient for large domestic properties and means that Vaillant now has a high-efficiency boiler for every type of dwelling. It has a SEDBUK A rating.

Stainless-steel bellows-sealed PN40 valves from Spirax Sarco offer low maintenance costs for hygienic applications that demand non-corrosive equipment.

Trane’s VarioTrane range of variable-speed drives can be used in a wide range of plant incorporating fans and pumps to control the speed of motors and reduce energy consumption — while at the same time improving performance compared with constant-speed systems.

Powrmatic’s NV range of suspended gas-fired unit heaters has a combustion efficiency of 92% and qualifies for Enhanced Capital Allowances.

The Fisair range of evaporative humidifiers for air-handling units and ducted systems is now available from Vapac under a sole-distribution agreement for the UK.

Grundfos has expanded its Magna range of pumps to provide flows from 5 to 35 m3/h and heads from 1.2 to 12 m.

Keraflo has introduced a 5-year extended warranty for its Aylesbury range of float valves. Extensive testing over two million cycles has proved there is no measurable wear on the ceramic disc that is the heart of a valve. The extended warranty is against manufacturing-related defects arising from faulty design and manufacture.