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Tapworks, the leading UK water softener manufacturer, has been independently assessed as the first carbon neutral water softener manufacturer in the UK – and it’s believed to be the first popular household appliance manufacturer of any kind to be able to claim carbon neutral status or better.

The forward thinking company – the UK arm of the world’s leading water softener company – called in an accredited EU Emissions Trading Scheme Verifier to assess every aspect of the work it undertakes with a view to confirming what it had been working towards over the last twelve months – that it was categorically, performing in a carbon neutral manner.

The assessor measured and evaluated every aspect of the UK operation from the product’s arrival in the UK, transportation, the operations of the company’s HQ in Stokenchurch, other UK transport issues including the use of company owned vehicles and the end use operational energy costs – the energy used by the water softeners after they had been installed in customers homes. An annual tonnage of carbon dioxide generated for each of these areas was calculated to assess the required savings that needed to be available to set against the emissions to achieve a carbon neutral status – or better.

Tests were carried out on Tapworks water softener models to establish the electrical power drawn to operate the products and these averaged out at 7 watts per unit. The assessor then used verifiable figures from a US study on the energy savings that can be attributed to a Tapworks water softener – savings that can be attributed to the reduction of scale formation on boiler heat exchangers, in radiators and pipework, in valves, pumps and taps, leading to vastly improved thermal transfer from a standard domestic heating system along with the reduced energy required in the home – and in fact the figures were reduced for UK operation from the between 22 and 30% measured in the USA to just 20% here in the UK to give a generous margin for error – the independent assessor confirms the findings that “it is likely that the annual emissions created in the US manufacture of the UK sold units are covered by the annual emissions saving created by the softener use. It is therefore safe to state categorically that the UK operation of Tapworks has a beneficial impact on the environment.”

Tapworks managing director Mike Pickavance is understandably delighted with the report and being named the first UK appliance manufacturer to be able to categorically state that his operation is carbon neutral or better: “This is an aim we have had for a while and to get this report is excellent news for the business – but even better news for our growing customer base who can buy install and use their Tapworks water softener knowing that it is not only not contributing to the CO2 emissions problem, it’s actually helping it! To be able to claim that as a business you are carbon neutral is no easy task – ask Marks and Spencer – and can only be achieved by quantifying the actual energy employed at all stages of the business’s activity and transparently accounting for the compensatory measures we employ to offset the impact of the environmental emissions we all cause to a greater or lesser extent.

“This report highlights that by installing a water softener, if you live in a hard water area of the UK – which is about 60% of the country – you will not only be installing a carbon neutral appliance, you will also be saving up to 20% a year on your energy bills because of the reduced demand on electrical energy supply from a power station or gas combusted in the water heating equipment.”

It could even be argued that the Government should legislate for every home in a hard water area in the UK to have a Tapworks water softener installed to contribute towards it achieving its emissions reduction targets!

Whilst this is all excellent news the report still singled out areas where the operation could improve still further: “We’re delighted, but not resting on our laurels,” says Mike Pickavance. “We are now aware of areas where in return for minimal additional effort we can improve these figures still further and as a business that’s what we want to do. It makes huge sense to the business as not only will we further reduce emissions we will see benefits in operational costs that will add to our bottom line. It’s a strange thing that people still see making an effort to reduce emissions as an additional cost. Entered into sensibly, it’s quite the opposite. Being more energy efficient and energy conscious saves money and can add to your profit.”

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Weatherite Building Services has installed new environmentally friendly air conditioning systems at two John Lewis department stores in Norwich and High Wycombe.

Following the success of similar work they carried out at other John Lewis stores, Weatherite was once again appointed Principle Contractor for the projects, which together were worth a total of almost £400,000.

At both stores the work involved the recovery, design, supply and installation of new air conditioning units to replace the previous units that used the R22 refrigerant, making them environmentally unsound.

At the Norwich store, Weatherite installed Hitachi air cooled chillers, Daikin DX split units and Airedale condensing units. At High Wycombe they installed Hitachi air cooled chillers and Daikin DX split units.

Mike Turton, sales director, Weatherite, comments: “We are delighted to continue to support John Lewis with their five year programme to upgrade air conditioning within their stores, and in particular to be appointed the role of Principle Contractor.

“Having now successfully upgraded the air conditioning systems at six of their stores, we have built a strong relationship with John Lewis and look forward to working with them again in the near future.”

Graham Mappledoram, Central Specialist (HVAC) at John Lewis, adds: “Once again, we are delighted with the work that Weatherite have done for us. Customers and staff at both Norwich and High Wycombe have commented on the difference the new air conditioning has made to the stores.”

WBS is part of the £40m Weatherite Group, one of the UK’s leaders in air conditioning and air handling equipment.

More recently WBS has expanded its activities to cover other sectors of the building services market including heating, ventilation, boiler house refurbishment, water, control systems and electrics as well as all aspects of commercial air conditioning systems, offering a single source choice to its customers which includes full project management, design, installation and commissioning capabilities.

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1st Anniversary
The HPE/KBB show is an ideal venue for HYDRAQUIP to celebrate their first anniversary of being at their purpose built premises. To celebrate the company will be showing off new products and areas where they have worked in close partnerships with major manufacturers to exceed their demands.

Product Launch
The show will see the launch of the exciting new ELEGANT range of valves by HYDRAQUIP, which will offer both OEM's and end users a quality component that they will be proud to incorporate into their final range or finished installation.

Come and join us in Hall 8 Stand PH49

Your FREE Tickets
To request your FREE tickets for the show please contact Rabs by email rabs@hydraquip.co.uk or telephone 0845 260 4334. To register online please visit the KBB website www.kbb.co.uk

Cant Make the show?
Then an open invitation is extended to customers and their clients to visit the HYDRAQUIP production facility in Kent, to view and discuss ways in which the HYDRAQUIP partnerships have built, improved and benefited customers in a number of industries and could help you.

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A range of user-friendly underground water meter boundary boxes has been launched by Hepworth Building Products.

Designed for safety and ease of access, HepBox® provides the connection point between mains and household water supply. Taking into account the needs of utility companies, installers, meter readers and pedestrians, HepBox’s® design is based on Hepworth’s extensive expertise in transporting water and composite access cover technology.

HepBox® includes a lightweight access cover, which will support wheel loads of up to 12.5 tonnes, and has an anti-slip tread pattern to reduce the risk of pedestrians slipping in wet or icy weather.

The first product of its type to be both WRc and WRAS approved, HepBox® meets the requirements of the UK water industry specification for boundary boxes, including basic performance and quality control tests.

Installer-friendly features include the product’s two telescopic height adjustments, one to set the height of the box in the trench and the second to establish the final pavement levels. HepBox® can also be supplied with a Universal fitting making it easier and more cost effective to connect to an existing water supply.

Meter readers benefit from the HepBox’s® white guard in its main chamber, which gives better reflectivity of light onto the meter dial for ease of reading. It also has a stainless steel detection plate in the composite lid with a number matrix to help identify the property. All these features are useful to utility companies, who also benefit from HepBox’s® modular construction, which enables Hepworth to customise the product to each utility company’s specific technical and cost requirements. The hinged lid tool has been designed to allow customer badges or company logos to feature as required.

George Robertson, Composites Division – Managing Director, Hepworth Building Products, says: “Hepworth has a long history of supplying products to the water industry, so we are delighted to bring this advanced, customer-friendly product to the market. The introduction of HepBox® means that we now offer a total water, electricity and gas meter box package for the multi-utility market, something which is totally new in the marketplace.”

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Long-lasting Dulux Metalshield paint has given a sharp new look to a Cornish rollercoaster. The Hornet can carry 1300 passengers an hour and has been thrilling visitors to the Flambard’s theme park in Helston since it was built in 1995. After twelve years service though, the ride’s steel structure was showing its age and it was time for a re-paint.

Paul Morris, Technical Services Manager at Flambards, says that the important thing was to have a high durability exterior coating that would look good for years to come, and he turned to Dulux Trade to find the best system.

“We have to shut the ride down to paint it, so we don’t want to be doing it very often,” he says. “Dulux Trade is the leader in this type of application, with top quality products, so we wanted a recommendation on the best system to use.”

The system that Dulux Trade recommended was one coat of Dulux Trade Metalshield Zinc Phosphate Primer – a high build, fast drying primer with excellent rust inhibiting performance – followed by two coats of Dulux Trade Metalshield Gloss. This is a quick-drying solvent-based paint, specially formulated for metal, which can be over-coated within four to six hours.

Using the Dulux Trade specification as the basis for tenders, the painting contract was awarded to Whittle Painting of Nottingham, a company recommended to Paul Morris by another theme park, Drayton Manor, where it had repainted the Shockwave rollercoaster.

“Whittles was very professional – a top class company. The ride was closed for three weeks in June for the repainting, and the job was finished in two,” he says.

Painting the 410 metres of track and 120 support pillars required 300 litres of Metalshield gloss in three colours. Plush velvet, a deep royal blue, and traffic yellow were used on the track and columns with the handrails picked out in green.

Whittle Painting used 60 foot mobile hoists to paint around a third of the work, and the rest was completed using rope access and harnesses attached to the track which the painters then walked round.

“The results are impressive”, says Paul. “The Hornet looks like a new rollercoaster now and we are really pleased with the result. If we hadn’t used high quality paint we would have to be repainting it repeatedly, but with the Dulux Trade system we don’t expect to paint it again for ten years.”

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Having been established for many years and subject to considerable development activity over the years the Paddington Station water supply network is understandably vast, complex and to some degree uncharted. So the task of surveying the site to establish what's flowing where is challenging. And further complicated due to the original footprint of the station being reduced over the years, replaced by commercial office development and numerous retail outlets on site, which draw their water from the station supply. However, faced with higher than expected water bills the Paddington Building Services Team of Network rail was presented with the daunting task.

Having considered various survey options the management team opted for the Flow Measurement and Analysis services offered by Micronics utilising Micronics expertise with their Portaflo 300 – Time of Flight – portable flow and logging instruments. Portable Clamp-On Ultrasonic flow measurement has clear advantages for survey work and Micronics were selected as the supplier due to a combination of their long-term experience with non-invasive, Clamp-On technology, product performance and pre-order assistance. Six Portaflo 300 – instruments were utilised in two surveys to gather 24 hour consumption/load profiles for selected Hot and Cold water services including supplies to public conveniences.

The project is the joint responsibility of Building Supervisor – Peter Rogerson and M&E Supervisor Terry St Ledger. Terry St Ledger says the task of identifying what's flowing where in a site like Paddington is an ongoing project. The two Micronics surveys have provided useful information and an insight into what's flowing where, we've made a start but we will need to continue with further investigations over a longer term to realise the benefits.

Its early days and there has been no direct cost-benefit to Network Rail as yet. However, the project has demonstrated the benefits of Portable Clamp-On Ultrasonic flow measurement and that the option to hire or purchase a service with the necessary expertise for projects of this type is a viable alternative to product purchase.

There is potential for replication on-site, and the project is an example of how Clamp-On – Ultrasonic technology could be successfully implemented to gather information as part of an overall Water and Wastewater management process on similar sites. For further information please visit www.micronicsltd.co.uk.

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Liebherr-Great Britain Ltd has installed radiant tube heating from AmbiRad at its £15m state-of-the-art British HQ building in Biggleswade. The 5,000m² hi-tech facility houses service, maintenance and equipment testing for the Group’s complete range of heavy plant and construction equipment.

The new building, which is the size of a soccer pitch, has a roof height of 18 metres to accommodate the 25-tonne capacity overhead cranes. Among the innovative features designed into the premises is the UK’s biggest rolling road for mobile cranes, capable of handling up to 20-tonnes axles. There are 10 separate workbays for cranes, earthmovers, concrete truck mixers and a welding area.

Heating and maintaining comfort temperatures in such a large space building, which is subject to influxes of cold air when entrance doorways are opened, was a challenge for the services design engineers QuinnRoss Consultants Ltd.

AmbiRad designed a Nor-Ray-Vac continuous radiant tube system that would guarantee even heat coverage throughout the main assembly part of the building. The system was installed by M&E contractor Mitie Engineering Services (SE Region) Ltd.

A total of 14no. 46kW and 3no. 38kW burners were positioned in the main assembly areas, mounted at 15.3m from floor level. In the vehicle cleaning area, two AR35 U-tube radiant heaters were installed. This model is suitable for car wash environments, where water could be dangerous to standard radiant tubes. An additional heating supplement is supplied to the welding bay by four SG31 wall-mounted radiant plaque heaters.

The systems achieve excellent heat coverage, in spite of having to be positioned around and between the high-level cranes. The principal requirement of the system was that it should be economical to run. Radiant tube heating from AmbiRad is among the most economical forms of large space heating available. It allows the end-user close control of the heated environment, both with regard to temperature and zoning. The Liebherr system is divided into four separately-controlled zones to optimise fuel economy.

Radiant tube heating is cost-effective in large space buildings because it does not waste energy heating the vast volume of air within the building. It warms only people and objects in its path. All the heat is focused at the lowest two metres, exactly where it is most needed by people working in the premises.

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Building services contractor, Smith & Byford, have always been forward-thinking. In a competitive M&E sector, technology delivers advantages which the Surrey-based contractor has been swift to adopt. Now, ten years after first implementing a ViXEN solution, Smith & Byford are looking back on a decade of growth.

“In 1997 we realised our business would benefit from an integrated system and we’ve been keen to get the very most out of it since”, said director Will Smith. “Having the right system in place has helped our performance and the client service improvements have played an important role in us winning new business.”

ViXEN is a specialist building services system developed by leading software provider Vixensoft. “We’ve enjoyed working with Smith & Byford”, said Vixensoft Managing Director, Wayne Rogers, “and appreciated their enthusiasm and involvement in helping us develop a quality building services solution. I’m sure Will would agree that their growth over the last ten years can, in part, be attributed to the time they’ve invested in maximising the potential of their ViXEN system. It’s helped them deliver a superior client service and a level of reporting which clearly sets them apart.”

Smith & Byford use ViXEN across their entire business, with integration playing an important role in avoiding duplicated effort and cutting costs. The modules they employ include Estimating, Job Costing, Purchase Ordering, Financials, Payroll and, most recently, Service & Maintenance. With the introduction of mobile communications and mapping software, Smith & Byford sought to modernise their reactive service operation as well as improve their client service offering.

“Knowing where our engineers are located at any one time and then scheduling jobs accordingly using the ViXEN diary system is proving extremely useful,” said Will Smith. “It means that we can monitor our service operation much more effectively and get real-time information back to create KPI reports for our clients. For our engineers, it’s meant a lot less paperwork too, as they can receive job information on their PDAs and use them for completing forms and timesheets on-site which they then send in electronically. Data can then get posted automatically in the Job Costing and Payroll modules making it easier for us to invoice our clients quickly”.

”This is a particular bonus to the company which, in 2007, moved offices and took the opportunity to review their operations to ensure it was being eco-friendly. “Obviously, over time the digital ‘paperwork’ makes a big difference to storage pressures and our use of paper,” says Will Smith, as they strive to attain the ever-elusive paperless office. “It is also fair to say that improved efficiency in paperwork and systems provided by ViXEN have contributed to steady improvement in our operating profit over the last 3 years”.

Today, Smith & Byford employ 205 staff and are competing for major contracts across their operational area which stretches from Sevenoaks in the east to Basingstoke in the west and incorporates south London. The company’s notable successes include a 7 plus 5 year maintenance contract working alongside Mears plc for The Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames. The contract is worth approximately £40 million to Smith & Byford over its full term. In April 2007, they also secured a contract with the London Borough of Merton for 7 years valued at around £12 million.

Looking ahead, as Smith & Byford have been so successful at doing, ViXEN continues to help the company drive things forward. Recent developments within the ViXEN portfolio include an onsite procurement facility as an extension of the mobile communications solution. “It’s a two way street. Some of our developments are specifically at the request of our customers and others are conceived by us in reaction to issues we know the industry faces,” said Wayne Rogers. “Either way, we hope our software continues to help Smith & Byford and others achieve even greater success in the future.”

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McQuay UK have now completed and delivered the first batch of air conditioning equipment for Derby City General Hospital, which is being redeveloped by Skanska under a £333 million PFI project.

A total of 50 Easdale FP air handling units (ahu) have been supplied, installed and commissioned in the first phase, with air flow rates ranging from 1.17cubic metre per second to 17.36 cubic metre per second. All the systems include heat recovery in the specification, either run-around-coils or plate heat exchangers, together with the standard features of uPVC corner pieces, an extruded anodised aluminium frame and foam filled panels with excellent thermal properties and noise reduction. The units on this phase are serving the Pharmacy, Education, Acute West and the Kings Treatment Centre.

Working along side the ahu’s in this phase are eight McQuay air cooled chillers, including six ALS-E super silent single screw units and two small reciprocating models. All the chillers, which have cooling capacities ranging from190 kW to 950kW, have a tight noise specification of 61dBA at one metre and will operate with environment friendly HFC’s.

The second and final batch of equipment, including 30 ahu’s and two chillers, are due for delivery in Feb 2008. These are for the Acute East building and the refurbished Retained Estate programme.

Jamie Buxton, senior project manager for Skanska commented “From the beginning we worked closely with the project team from McQuay, to design and develop a workable solution for the complex air system at this ‘super hospital’. The first phase equipment is now on-line and so far we are very pleased with the quality and performance of the equipment.”

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