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When Suzie Adams the proprietor of The White House, a distinctive Victorian “boutique” guest house overlooking Hastings Old Town, called Chatham-based Monitor Fire Ltd. to advise her on fire protection she was pleased to discover that the installation of the fire alarm system would not have to damage her beautifully restored premises. Each of the distinctive rooms, all named after American presidents reflects great care and attention to detail so the last thing she wanted was the cabling, mess and disruption associated with wired systems. Monitor Fire, who specialise in the supply, installation and maintenance of fire protection and extinguisher systems in London and the South East designed and installed a system using Detectomat’s SRC 3000 wire free radio fire alarm and detection system. The Detectomat system offers many benefits over a traditional hard wired system, including low cost of installation, cost effectiveness and convenience for premises that are in continual public use. Its benefits make it ideal for the protection of small hotels, B & Bs, and guest houses, nurseries, sheltered housing schemes, special needs projects and residential homes as well as small commercial premises and HMO’s (Houses of Multiple Occupation). It was installed in The White House within one day as opposed to the 7 or 8 days associated with conventional installations, meaning there was very little impact on their year-round, 24/7 business. Suzie Adams, is delighted with the total flexibility it offers and was really pleased to be able to select the “designer” covers for the alarms to suit the individual dǸcor in the bedrooms and function rooms.

Monitor Fire are approved suppliers and installers of the Detectomat system. They are an established fire protection company and were formed in 2001 by Deryck Bottomley, the current MD. They are one of the few remaining independent suppliers in the UK providing products at competitive prices and an after-sales service that includes service and maintenance.

Detectomat’s product offering ranges from design conscious detector covers for residential and commercial applications to conventional, addressable and leading edge wire-free systems, marketed under the company’s “Wireless detect” brand. For further information on Monitor Fire Ltd. or Detectomat’s Wireless detect systems call 01579321750 or email Detectomat@leighandersonassociates.com.

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Polypipe TDI’s range of loft hatches is manufactured to comply with all Building Regulations requirements for insulated loft hatches with a clear opening of 600mm x 532mm. They include injection moulded Rigid Polypropylene outer hatches with no welded corners, attractive moulded ceiling architrave surround and trap door sculpture, offer easy access for loft ladders, are simple to fit, and come supplied in a box with fitting instructions.

For details, contact Polypipe TDI on 01629 733177 or visit www.polypipe.com/tdi

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Under the Government’s Access for All funded initiative, railways stations across the UK are being radically overhauled and Crittall Windows is playing a major role in supplying its Corporate W20 profiles for both refurbishment and new build programmes.

Originating from recommendations under the DDA Act 2005, the DFT published its Railways for All strategy in 2006, which stated that railway stations need to be brought into line, in terms of accessibility and Network Rail has embarked upon a comprehensive programme to make essential changes to its vast infrastructure.

Footbridges in particular are benefiting from the installation of Crittall’s Corporate W20 profiles, with future works planned to include screening for lift shafts : although the fenestration requirements vary from station to station, Crittall has been selected as preferred supplier for Network Rail and its local rail franchise operations.

“So far, we have worked on Witham, Ipswich, Loughborough, and Wendover stations” comments Ian Shepherd of Crittall. “Our designs for both refurbishment and replacement of existing glazed components revolve around the Corporate W20 hot dip m/f…galvanised, hot rolled steel sections. Frames are finished in durable, architectural grade polyester powder coating and coloured to suit the individual station or franchise’s corporate requirements.”

As he explains, there are a variety of styles specified, from fixed lights and raked windows to bottom and top hung casements and horizontal pivots. “For maximum safety, non projection hinge leaves are welded internally to the steel frame prior to galvanising, and assembled using a steel hinge during the manufacturing process,” he continues. Safety glazing is also included alongside varying thicknesses of single glazed laminates, clear or opaque, ranging from 8.8mm to 11.5mm.

The aim of the Government scheme is to allow all stations to be fully accessible, safe and secure, and the specification of the Crittall profiles is a testament to the strength and durability of the product range. “In addition,” concludes Ian, “our ability and flexibility to work with different architects, designers and contractors demonstrates the capacity of the company to adapt our expertise and product offering to individual requirements, whilst still maintaining the highest levels of quality and service.”

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There’s no denying the attractiveness of Hertfordshire as a place to live, apart perhaps from the hardness of the water that comes out of the water mains and untreated, can lead to significant problems from limescale build up around the home. And as well as limescale where you can see and experience it – in kettles, in shower heads, on shower screens and down loos, in washing machines and dishwashers, it can cause grief where you can’t see it – in the heating system in particular, where limescale build up in the boiler on the heat exchanger, and in the pipework and valves around the system, can reduce the efficiency of the heating system, see more gas or oil being used with consequential higher bills and of course the potential for higher maintenance bills when the limescale eventually causes blockages.

So if you’re looking to build a large, brand new home in leafy Hertfordshire, it makes sense to plan in something that gives you peace of mind, knowing that as a result of it, you won’t suffer from limescale build up – anywhere in the property.

Tucker French Plumbing & Heating Merchants are leading bathroom specialists in the Home Counties and have been supplying high quality bathroom and associated products since 2000. The Watford branch was asked by the owners of a brand new six bedroom property close by, to specify the fittings in the six bathrooms in their new home and as well as specifying the aesthetic components that made the bathrooms look fantastic, they also specified some additional components that would keep them looking that good. In particular, they specified a Tapworks water softener.

Andy Tucker says that there’s very little as depressing as seeing a stunning, brand new luxury bathroom – that a few weeks later is already looking the worse for wear as a result of the hard water that has not been addressed in the design stage: “We regularly specify water softeners because we have seen the damage that limescale can do – and in some parts of the Home Counties, the water is very hard indeed and damage can begin within weeks of the new installation getting used. In this project it was clear that we needed a reliable water softener that would address the limescale issues from the outset and the owners of the new property accepted our recommendation to install a Tapworks AD15 water softener unit that softens the water for the whole house apart from one tap in the kitchen which delivers untreated mains water as is recommended by regulations.”

The Tapworks water softener was installed by Stuart Wilson, senior engineer at Capital Heating in Watford: “We’re installing more and more softeners in this part of the world, for people who recognise that they have hard water and want to do something about it. For many, it’s the quality of life factor that is key – people like the feel of softened water, nicer feeling skin and shinier hair and some people anecdotally say that softened water has a beneficial effect on young children’s skin problems, such as eczema and psoriasis. For others they recognise quickly the reduction in cleaning that’s needed when you have one fitted and the lower bills for cleaning materials, shampoo and soap products – all of which can be cut in half when you have softened water. But for nearly all our customers that install a water softener, it’s the lower heating bills that they see that makes the real difference with bills at least 15% lower than pre-water softener installation, which all helps to see the water softener paying for itself within about two years – and there aren’t too many appliances you can say that about!”

The Tapworks AD15 is the largest domestic water softener in the Tapworks range, selected because of the size of the property – six bedrooms with additional out buildings – and has been installed in the boiler/plant room on the side of the property. Tapworks offers a range of softeners to meet the water softening needs of every size home from a small apartment where you can have a softener that fits neatly into a standard kitchen cabinet – to a huge home, and then has a range of softeners for commercial use as well – many laundries, hotels and the like have water softeners on a much larger scale, for the same reasons most people have them in their homes – to stop limescale damage and to reduce costs.

“We’re delighted that our unit was specified by Andy Tucker for this project,” says Brett Benson, Tapworks national sales manager. “It’s a very prestigious new build project in an equally prestigious part of the country and our AD15 will contribute towards keeping limescale at bay in the property and to reducing heating costs. It’s very rewarding in these tougher economic times to see sales of our softeners holding up well, and we’re sure this reflects the growing awareness of the savings that investment in a water softener can bring to the family budget.”

More information on Tapworks water softeners and hard water can be found at www.tapworks.co.uk. Or you can call for more information on 01494 480 621.

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An elegant blend of Art Deco and English Edwardian styling, the newly restored The Savoy introduces classically-inspired furnishings against a backdrop of original architectural features steeped in over 120 years of history.

One of the first hotels to offer electric lighting in 1889, The Savoy now boasts an assemblage of luminaires from Chelsom that spans the spectrum from restored treasured heirlooms to sparkling bespoke feature lights which utilise the latest low energy technology.

Original brass Art Deco pendants suspended within the lobby were carefully cleaned and restored by Chelsom before being refurbished with high output 150W Halogen lamps and Emergency LEDs, to cast bright light onto the heavily corniced ceiling and subtle downlight onto the highly polished floor tiles, whilst adhering to safety regulations. Representing the grandeur of a bygone age, the pendants are a striking example of British craftsmanship at its best.

With a stunning interior scheme designed by Pierre-Yves Rochon & Reardon Smith Architects, The Savoy has undoubtedly regained its iconic status as one of the leading hotels of the world, offering the very best in traditional English hospitality.

The 268 guestrooms, offering the height of 5-star luxury, now feature an eclectic mix of table lamps, desk lights and reading lighting from the Chelsom range. Brass swing arm reading lights and Bohemian hand-cut crystal chandeliers hang from the ceilings in the traditional guestrooms providing opulent glamour and timeless elegance, whilst the Deco rooms feature 1920’s inspired nightstands and bathroom lighting and state-of-the-art LED cone head reading lights in the headboards.

Handmade silk shades were specially fabricated by Chelsom for many of the retained fittings, adding a new lease of life to the antique pieces.

After undergoing “the most ambitious hotel restoration project ever undertaken in London”, the Savoy is truly back as a statement of British heritage.

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The BBA is delighted to announce that it has been accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to offer installer approval under the Green Deal.

The BBA has been involved in much of the Green Deal developing framework including the Installer Accreditation Forum and the development of the installation standard PAS 2030: 2012. Therefore, we have an excellent understanding of the requirements that installers will need to meet to become approved under the Green Deal together with our long experience of running successful approved installer schemes in the construction industry.

We have also produced a green deal installer guide, accessed via our website www.bbacerts.co.uk/green-deal/installer-requirements, which explains the necessary steps that installers need to take to meet the requirements of the PAS.

Installers requiring an application form can e-mail greendeal@bba.star.co.uk or telephone 01923 665 300.

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Plant hire provides innovative way to save money

ELGA Process Water’s AQUAMOVE mobile water treatment solutions team has reduced maintenance downtime and increased revenue at Lakeside EFW, a major energy from waste plant at Colnbrook near Slough. The facility incinerates 410,000 tonnes of household and municipal waste per year and exports 34 MW of electricity to the National Grid.

Lakeside EFW uses waste fired boilers generating 45bar steam to drive a turbine. When a boiler is drained for its routine maintenance it has to be refilled with demineralised water, with a limited flow from the make-up water demineralisation plant, this would take about three days – days of lost generation. This is where the AQUAMOVE MOFI™ 35m3/h mobile plant comes in. Martin Rogers, EHS Manager at Lakeside EFW, explains: “Hiring in the MOFI™ mobile unit means that we can get the boiler up and running in less than a day, and the increased generation revenue more than covers the hire cost. An Aquamove engineer can be deployed, together with the necessary equipment, fittings and documentation within 2 hours of a call, and that’s reassuring”. It means that if we think we might have a problem with our demineralisation plant, we can always have a MOFITM on standby at short notice.” The MOFITM is self contained, and regeneration is carried out at ELGA Process Water’s regeneration station in Stoke-on-Trent, so there is no chemical or waste handling on site.

Lakeside EFW was impressed with the service from ELGA Process Water, a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies company, and has placed a contract with their HYDREX® chemical treatment team to help optimise their steam cycle efficiency. The contract covers a twice-weekly visit from one of ELGA Process Water’s chemists to check the boiler water chemistry and to ensure that Legionella control in the domestic water systems meets current legislation.

Visit www.aquamove.co.uk for more information on AQUAMOVE and other water treatment solutions.

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Eaton’s Electrical Sector
The Energy Show 2011
RDS Dublin
30th and 31st March 2011
Stands H10 and J13

Eaton’s Electrical Sector is turning the spotlight on sustainability at the Energy Show 2011, with products and solutions that highlight environmental benefits and help businesses to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs.

As a concrete example of how recent developments are helping to enhance sustainability, Eaton is showing a dual-conversion uninterruptible power supply (UPS) from its new 9395 range, which has the lowest carbon footprint of any comparable product. The 9395 is especially suited to data centres and has now been recognised as meeting the stringent requirements associated with qualification for the UK government’s Enhanced Capital Allowances scheme.

Eaton is a global leader in the provision of innovative sustainable solutions for the electrical sector, and offers a wide range of supporting technologies that are ready for immediate deployment. This means that users – and the environment – can immediately start enjoying proven and substantial benefits.

Throughout the exhibition, experts from Eaton are available on the stand to discuss these technologies, which include variable speed drives, flexible sub-metering solutions, photovoltaic energy systems and power factor correction. The experts on the stand are also offering details of Eaton’s PowerChain Management for electrical distribution, which is an innovative holistic approach aimed at effective optimisation of the measurement and control of energy usage in electrical power systems at every level.

In addition to discussing the company’s products and services, Eaton is also offering advice related to the specific requirements of visitors to the exhibition and, thanks to its exceptionally wide product portfolio and its in-depth expertise in all facets of the electrical sector, it is uniquely well placed to ensure that this advice is accurate and dependable, and that it reflects the most recent developments and trends.

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Klober Mini Uni-Line Slate Vents have been used to provide high level ventilation in the newly built Preston House in Glenrothes. The prestigious care home is part of the Kingdom Homes group and is a 60 bedroom nursing facility considered to be at the forefront of care in Fife. The building has a 40° pitch and long-span, slate roof with hips and dormers. The Mini Uni-Line vent is suitable for use with most small natural slates and provides an unobtrusive finish which neatly follows the profile of the roof.

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Stelrad Radiators, the leading UK radiator manufacturer, has released the latest updated version of its popular ‘STARS Heatloss calculator’. It contains much more than you would expect and more than previous versions that have been used for years by dedicated heating system designers and heating engineers. The latest version offers an even simpler way to get sizing of radiators right, first time. And what’s even better, it’s free! Simply click on to the Stelrad web site at www.stelrad.com, click on ‘STARS’, register – and you’re away.

It’s essential that radiators used in a home are the right size for the room and for the building construction. This ensures that homeowners are not paying over the odds for a radiator that’s too big for the job and it means they won’t be paying higher energy bills than they should be, either.

To ensure that the maximum energy efficiency level is obtained from a heating system – and by definition, that emissions are lowered and energy costs are reduced for the householder – it’s vital that the radiators on that system are correctly sized, to reflect the size and shape of the room they’re in and to take into account the materials used in that room’s construction, in particular taking into consideration the levels of insulation that have been incorporated.

Too many homes are still suffering from oversized or in fewer cases, undersized radiators, meaning the rooms are too hot or too cold, or more likely, the radiators selected are never working to their true capacity. It’s far easier to pop your head around a door in a room and say ‘it’s about an ‘x’ sized radiator’, than it is to do the calculation. But to do a professional job, it clearly makes sense to use the right components and to make a few relatively quick calculations to ensure that what you recommend, delivers exactly what the customer needs in his or her home.

Stelrad Radiators – the UKs leading radiator manufacturer – has for a long time provided a special tool for installers and specifiers called STARS –the Stelrad Technical Advanced Radiator System. STARS has been used on PCs around the UK for several years to help people to work out just this – the right sized radiators to heat a home.

To update and improve the information available, Stelrad has released a new and improved version of STARS as a free download from www.stelrad.com.It will shortly be launching a new App version for installers and system designers to use on their smart phones.

Stelrad Product Manager Chris Harvey is the man behind the new version of STARS: “STARS is an online application built by Stelrad for anyone who needs to calculate heat loss for a room so they can choose the correct heating requirements and select the right components for a system.

“It enables instantaneous heat loss calculations using the unique room planner, where you can literally drag the walls of the room using your computer mouse, and the output figure is calculated in real time."

“With the STARS application being online, you can log in from anywhere if you have web access, and use your account immediately. As a major bonus, your account will remember all your previous projects, so you can easily duplicate similar projects to save time and hassle.”

STARS emphasis is on energy efficiency, increasing insulation levels and strict Building Regulations, all of which create additional difficulties when striving to achieve accurate Heatloss and U value calculations. The advanced domestic heatloss design service and BTU calculator incorporated in STARS are designed to help specify a room’s heatloss by incorporating all the CIBSE standard U values.

The new HeatLoss Calculator has been devised to improve the sizing of radiators with far greater accuracy, and this is where STARS provides the perfect solution. STARS now allows the user to draw a much wider range of room shapes and a visual check on room shape is achievable through an on screen floor plan.

The new U Value Calculator incorporates all THE CURRENT BUILDING REGULATION REQUIREMENTS ALONG WITH THE CIBSE standard U values. Unknown U values can be calculated accurately as STARS is able to cope with different materials, whilst other construction materials can be added when required.

It is an excellent tool for anyone needing to accurately size radiators for a heating system. It’s aimed at all Stelrad users, from one off self-builders and home renovators, to architects and specifiers, and housing developers.

It’s available as a download only – simply click on www.stelrad.com – click on STARS, and follow the instructions. For those who have used STARS before, it’s a very similar tool, just updated for the modern world in which we live. Details of the wide range of Stelrad products can be found at www.stelrad.com and copies of the recently launched ‘Radiator Book’ – an essential guide for all specifiers and installers -can be requested by calling on 0870 849 8058.

…..AND STELRAD GETS RIBA CPD ACCREDITATION

And further great news – Stelrad – has received accreditation by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) as a CPD seminar provider.

The initial CPD seminar on offer to architects is based on explaining the technical differences between serial and parallel feed radiators and highlights how new serial feed technology helps reduce fuel costs and a property’s carbon footprint. The seminar takes attendees through the basics of radiator technology, explaining the mix of radiant and convection heat generated by them and highlighting the basis on which current radiators operate, using parallel feed technology which sees both front and back panels of a radiator heating up at the same time.

The seminar progresses into the concept of serial feed technology that is used in the new Stelrad Radical radiator range, launched at Ecobuild in 2012. This highlights how the Radical radiator sees the front panel heat up first and quickest and through the inclusion of factory fitted thermostatic valve controls, the heated water is allowed into the back panel only when a pre-determined temperature has been reached.

The seminar explains how vitally, the serial feed radiator has a measurably positive effect on the boiler as well. Because the water leaving the radiator is cooler than from a traditional parallel feed radiator, a condensing boiler will actually condense more efficiently, ensuring the maximum energy efficiency from the boiler as well.

The overall measureable effects of using a serial feed radiator has been independently assessed by KIWA as a 10.5% energy saving which is impressive by any standards.

Stelrad’s Product Manager is Chris Harvey: “We’re delighted to have received accreditation from RIBA to become a provider of regular CPD seminars for its members. It’s an important step forward for us and we’re looking forward to meeting RIBA members around the country in the months ahead and to adding additional seminars to this first accredited one, to raise levels of understanding in the heating sector amongst architects up and down the country.”

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