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Laidlaw Solutions’ Orbis Anti-ligature range of stainless steel door furniture has been used extensively at Rose Lodge, a specialist centre for the assessment and treatment of working age adults with a range of learning disabilities. This is the latest of a number of projects undertaken by Laidlaw alongside specialist healthcare architects MAAP and Laing O’Rourke for Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

MAAP Architects’ brief was to create modern and safe facilities that respect the privacy and dignity of service users. The local NHS Trust also required the building to be future-proofed to a 'medium secure' level, so anti-ligature products included Bedroom, Washroom and Communal Room Locksets, all with primary or secondary barricade features. Acute, Enhanced and Supported Care facilities will be provided using a 'Swing' bedroom layout to allow flexibility of admissions. The environment will be one of intensive use, so choice and performance of door furniture was key. Laidlaw Business Development Manager Clint Robertson commented, “The interior emphasis in such secure environments has changed dramatically and the extended range of co-coordinated Orbis Anti-ligature door furniture has provided greater design scope. Long-term performance of door furniture for clients such as this is critical, so the 10-year guarantee is invaluable.”

The £6.1m centre will provide intensive help and treatment for health problems such as epilepsy and is supported by a team of health professionals and specialists who will determine each individual’s complex needs. Construction was undertaken under ProCure21 procurement for publicly funded NHS Capital Schemes, the fast track timber framed construction being undertaken by Laing O’Rourke. Their Project Manager Joe Jefferson, added, “Laidlaw performed extremely well, contributing enormously to the scheme. They were a very influential part of the delivery team, enabling a successful conclusion to the project”.

The project has been submitted to the 2010 RICS Awards for the 'Community Benefit'' category.

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To provide the market with a very modern plate finish, UK electrical accessory manufacturer, Hamilton Litestat has just launched its exciting new ‘Piano Black’ range. This features a high gloss black plate finish with contrasting bright chrome edge and rocker switch to address the latest design craze for Japanese influenced black lacquered finishes. These coatings have recently increased in popularity and are now being featured to produce cutting edge design on kitchen units and electrical equipment such as televisions and sound systems.

Featuring Hamilton’s new Linea-Rondo CFX plate, which offers the benefits of dual finish, minimal depth and secret screw fixing system, it affords seamless styling and sophistication. Manufactured using the finest materials and production standards it provides a breath of fresh air for top end interior designers.

The patented CFX Linea face plates consists of 4 pillars, with each one having a small metal clip which is designed to hold the face plate firmly to the back fame neatly concealing the fixing screws. As the Linea CFX accessories incorporate a separate back frame and face plate they allow the specifier to choose whether to use the same finish on both elements or to use different ones to create a sublime contrasting option such as that featured on ‘Piano Black’.

By designing this new product development on a ‘family theme’ Hamilton’s has made it possible to maintain design continuity throughout the whole of the wiring scheme and, at the same time, offer flexibility to meet an installation’s more sophisticated demands.

To this end, the range incorporates an extensive range of accessories to suit almost all installation requirements. These accessories include trailing edge dimmers, dolly switches, a hotel switch card along with digital television sockets and a range of sockets including a single gang 5amp double pole unswitched socket and shaver socket.

Where specials are required such as air conditioning, volume or other controls, which are not included within the range, Hamilton Litestat offers a bespoke service. These special plates can feature third party inserts, thus maintaining design symmetry throughout the installation

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Worcester, part of the Bosch Group, has provided one of its new Greensource air to water heat pumps to a major sustainability project at the BRE (Building Research Establishment) in Watford.

‘The Renewable House’ is a unique project using renewable materials to deliver a low cost, affordable house that meets Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, with a build cost of £75,000, from groundworks up. Whilst offering significantly minimised embodied CO2, the design of the property also enables the easy enhancement to meet Levels 5 and 6 of the Code.

One of Worcester’s 6kW Greensource air to water heat pumps has been installed in the Renewable House to deliver heating and hot water to the property. The heat pump will feed underfloor heating on the ground floor and radiators on the first floor.

Martyn Bridges, director of marketing and technical support at Worcester, said: “We were extremely pleased when we were approached by Clairline Heating who carried out the heat pump installation. It is an honour for one of our new products to be selected as the sole source of heat for such an important project which should help to improve the level of efficiency in future UK housing stock.”

Designed with scale-up in mind, The Renewable House benefits from rapid construction. With only 12 weeks build time, it provides a groundbreaking solution to the Government's target of building up to 250,000 sustainable, affordable and desirable homes.

The house’s performance will be monitored over a three year period in order to establish evidence of the performance characteristics and the sustainability profile of renewable building materials. It is anticipated the development will demonstrate that low costs and renewable building methods are compatible and together they provide a viable method of delivering these sustainable, affordable homes.

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It’s not often that bad weather and health and safety combine to give a building product a major sales boost. That was the case this winter, however, as pitched roofing specialist Klober found that demand for its Snow Guard soared. Snow Guard prevents heavy snow slippage from pitched roofs, allowing it to pass gradually through a rigid steel grid as melting takes place. Andrew Borthwick of Badenoch Roofing commented, “We have fitted a good many Snow Guards over the past two winters, as our only other option would have been to use lengths of heavy 6 x 2 timber. Snow Guard is far lighter, easier to fit and also provides valuable protection throughout the year against dislodged or broken tiles falling to the ground.”

To fit, support brackets are simply positioned over the batten and tile, a course or two up from the eaves. Connectors are supplied to join each section together. Snow Guard can be used with profiled or flat interlocking tiles and natural slate, and needs no additional support battens. Sold in 3-metre lengths, the powder-coated, galvanised steel grids are available in black, tile red and brown.

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Windhager UK, Stands 1746, 1750 & 1765, Ecobuild 2010

Leading supplier of sustainable heating systems, Windhager UK, will be exhibiting its range of innovative biomass boilers and solar thermal systems at this year’s Ecobuild, as well as launching the VarioWIN, a versatile and compact biomass pellet boiler with pellet feed variants and different boiler versions to offer a solution to all requirements.

The VarioWIN is a practical heating solution unrivalled for its adaptability, allowing an option of direct pellet feed, suction system or manual loading in a small and compact design that can be installed practically anywhere in the home. The system ensures efficient and clean combustion even in low output ranges and can be combined with other heat generators as a result of Windhager’s system technology. The VarioWIN has an output range from 3.6kW to 12kW and offers an ideal solution for all dwellings with a low energy demand. Installation of the VarioWIN will meet Code 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes without having to improve any of the building fabric.

The Windhager range of wood pellet boilers also includes the latest version of the popular BioWIN boiler, which retains BioWIN’s compact design, its fully automatic operation, and its high levels of efficiency but adds further refinements such as a fully automatic pellet feed, fully automatic ash removal and cleaning and a newly optimised pellet burner. The latest BioWIN also features the digital information module ‘InfoWIN’, giving all data and full text information on the boiler’s operation.

Also in the range is FireWIN, a fully automated wood pellet system with a stylish design making it ideal for use in modern, low energy homes.

Windhager UK will also be exhibiting its new generation of log gasification boilers LogWIN and SilvaWIN. With its small footprint, large filling chamber and new down firing technique to ensure maximum performance and cleaner burning, the LogWIN sets new industry standards in output ranges and efficiency. The SilvaWIN has a unique automatic rapid heat-up procedure ensuring the best possible combustion with optimum energy use and uses optimally attuned unique system components to ensure that the system is reliable and safe to operate.

Windhager UK also supplies SolarWIN flat plate solar collectors an intelligent way to make an active contribution against climate change, using the latest technology for maximum extraction of solar energy to positively reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

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Any business using more than 6000 megawatts of electricity needs to register on the Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme (CRC’s) by April 2010. The CRC is a cap and trade scheme introduced by the Government with a target of reducing carbon emissions by one-third by 2050. The scheme demands that around 5,000 organisations, those that consume over 6 GWh/year and who operate half hourly metering join, and participants will have to purchase carbon allowances based on the Information Packs they receive from the Environment Agency.

Initially organisations will need to accurately monitor their energy use emissions and record that information into a database designed to perform all monitoring and targeting functions. Whilst this starting point targets the biggest users of electricity, its just that – a starting point with the aim of the scheme is to encourage business across the board to use less energy and generate less in the way of CO2 emissions. It’s the start of ‘the polluter pays’ tax approach that will gather pace here in the UK and across Europe in the next five years.

Most businesses know the CRC is coming – very few have done much about it yet! The time to prepare is now and Watermatic, part of the Sentinel Group, offers many large businesses a way of reducing their energy consumption by reducing limescale build up in their systems that results in a need to use far more electricity than would be required for clean, scale free plant and hot water systems – in particular, hotels, nursing homes, leisure centres, food processing businesses, offices and retail outlets – are realising that Watermatic has a proven solution to at least part of their immediate problems.

So how much electricity does a business use? Debenhams, for example, uses 233,000 megawatts of electricity a year in its retail outlets and offices and at £12 per tonne for a so called ‘allowance tonne’ of CO2, that’s some bill to pay at the end of the year. Not surprisingly, as a business, Debenhams is looking for ways of reducing its energy usage and carbon footprint, to reduce its CRC’s bill.

Rob Hill who heads up the Watermatic Division : “Businesses in the UK are suddenly faced with a major incentive to reduce electricity usage and to reduce their overall carbon footprint. They knew it was coming but it appears to have been put on the backburner by many businesses that are now having to face up to the consequences of not preparing or acting quickly enough.

“We can help businesses through the supply of our KAL-GUARD+ equipment packages which have been independently proven to reduce scale build up in water systems by up to 80%.”

Straightforward to install, KAL-GUARD+ is an in-line powered electrolytic water treatment device that delivers a proportional release of Zinc to manage limescale within a system. The unit incorporates a simple to use, yet sophisticated controller to match the level of dosing to suit the systems water hardness conditions producing a measurable “residual” effect throughout the system, and as a result in independent testing at Cranfield University has been shown to reduce limescale formation on heat transfer surfaces by up to 80 percent.

Amongst businesses that have already installed KAL-GUARD+ equipment to protect their systems and reduce their energy consumption are well known names such as Birds Eye, BMW, Whitbread, Asda and KrispyCreme Doughnuts!

WATERMATIC provides products to combat limescale and corrosion in commercial and industrial premises. As well as being ideal for use in the hospitality and leisure industries, KAL-GUARD+ is also successfully used in factories, nursing and care homes and government buildings across the UK and Europe. The company implements an ongoing research and development programme to create innovative solutions that fulfil the requirements of many organisations for low cost of ownership with minimum environmental impact. None of the WATERMATIC products use chemicals or produce harmful waste products – but they do ensure the maintenance of a system’s cleanliness and energy efficiency and have WRAS accreditation.

WATERMATIC can provide lime-scale water treatment for up to eight-inch pipework (216mm). Physical corrosion protection is also available as 'in-line' units and are effective against corrosion in steel and galvanised steel pipework as well as mixed metal systems.

Water is the very life-blood of a building and, like the real thing, it has to circulate effectively and perform efficiently. Corrosion and limescale all pose a threat to a building's water systems but with the appropriate preventative measures such as KAL-GUARD+, water systems can continue to provide optimum performance throughout their life.

Rob Hill again: “The Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme (CRC’s) is concentrating the minds of many major companies that will be immediately part of the scheme from early 2010 and many smaller companies are aware that they will be part of the scheme before too much longer. It simply makes sense to prepare in good time and take actions now that will contribute to the reductions in carbon emissions for which you are responsible, reducing the costs to business and vitally reducing the costs of maintenance now!”

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ATG Access “The Bollard People” are proud to announce the successful impact test of the worlds shallowest PAS 68 automatic bollard; The “SP Shallow TT”.

On Thursday 11th March at MIRA test centre ATG Access witnessed the SP Shallow TT arrest a 7.5 tonne (15000lb) truck travelling at 40mph (64kph). The truck was dead stopped with zero penetration.

This latest innovation in technology allows the use of automatic bollards for high security solutions to be installed in areas where underground services or lack of space for excavation may cause a problem.

The ATG Access SP Shallow TT stands one metre tall yet only requires 900mm (35 inches) foundation. Significantly less than any other high security bollard. This opens a wide range of applications for rising bollards, which previously would have been impossible due to foundation requirements.

Engineering spokesman for ATG Access Robert Ball said “The future of high security lies in shallow foundation products, in modern city centres the need for ultra strong products which are buried to a minimal depth is phenomenal and our SP range is streets ahead of the competition, we are extremely proud to have engineered a double action retractable mechanism product that can perform to this level in such a shallow foundation”.

For further details of the SP Shallow TT rising bollard and the company’s range of other products contact the Marketing Department or visit the website www.atgaccess.com

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ATG Access will be exhibiting at Counter Terror Expo 2010.

14th-15th April.

National Hall, Olympia

Stand E25

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