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BRUTE FORCE
Sixties concrete
eyesore re-emerges
as green queen

PLUS
Solar PV faces
eclipse
Services get up the
noses of opera fans
How to design
solar shading

NEWS ROUND-UP
GUIDE TO NEW WATER REGS
HELP FOR RECESSION-HIT STAFF
SKETCHUP FOR GROWN-UPS
CPD: PLASTIC PIPES
HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS

LOW ENERGY SOLUTIONS FOR ENGINEERS

OCTOBER 2009 | £8 | VOL 1 N0 9
WWW.BSDLIVE.CO.UK

ANDY PEARSON
EDITOR
MAKE REFURB COUNT
Editor
Andy Pearson
Print and online reporter
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Mark Bergin
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Gail Novelle, Teresa Merrigan
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The views expressed in this journal are
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referred to in articles. The editor reserves
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©All editorial contents UBM Built
Environment 2009. ISSN 2040-0500
LEADER 03
New buildings are the main focus of the government’s
campaign to reduce emissions from the built
environment yet the existing stock remains largely
untouched. This will have to change if the UK is to
meet its commitment to reduce carbon emissions by at
least 80% by 2050, particularly as more than half of the
buildings that will be standing then are standing now.
The situation is unlikely to be helped by the
government’s U-turn on the inclusion of consequential
improvements to existing buildings in Part L 2010.
This would have forced homeowners planning an
extension to spend a sum equal to 10% of its cost on
improving energy efficiency in the existing house. Just
as it did in 2006, the government has thrown away an
opportunity to tackle emissions from our old stock.
This emphasis on new building is naive: once
cost and embodied energy are taken into account,
refurbishment can be a far more environmentally
friendly and sustainable option. It is, of course, easier
to achieve energy efficiency in a new building than
with the carcass of an existing one. But Ashburton
Court, the subject of this month’s Building Analysis
(page 20), shows how much can be achieved.
On paper, the grim and inefficient 1960s
headquarters of Hampshire County Council was ripe
for demolition. An enlightened client, a visionary
architect and an enthusiastic engineer produced a
refurbishment both cost-effective and sustainable. Not
all projects will have the same scope for energy saving
as this large-scale revamp, but even partial refurbs
offer opportunities to reduce emissions.
One note of caution: the Carbon Trust says
that many refurbished offices end up generating
higher emissions than the original because their
remodelled interiors are able to house more occupants,
which results in greater unregulated energy use for
things such as catering. Perhaps this is an argument
for not doing too good a job on the refurbishment – or
making sure the tenants employ a bad chef.
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
Advertisement feature

Check out two more

stars for top hotels
Two new ‘stars’ make life simpler for hotel air conditioning system designers and installers, and make
life easier for hotel guests. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has introduced a new duct-connected
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The FDUH units, used with MHI’s high
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Because electrical cable and pipe runs
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Ordering and stock handling is simpler
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MHI Sales Manager, David Lettis, says:
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Easier-to-use hotel room temperature controller

The new RCH-E3 controller is a
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for some time. The special hotel
room control panel retains the best
features of the existing model,
including the easy-to-read LCD
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wire installation, but has only the
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The RCH-E3 allows guests to control
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but users are unable to set excessive
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Programmable timer functionality and
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David Lettis says: “Simplicity and ease
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controller provides these. Hotel guests
want air conditioning which they can
adjust with the touch of a button;
hotel managers want a system for
maximum efficiency without users
overriding important functionality.”

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 CONTENTS 05

NEWS & OPINION

07 06 NEWS REVIEW
LAST-MINUTE DELAY OF WATER REGS
17 OPINION
DAY OF RECKONING
The revised Part G, due to come into force World Green Building Day is the industry’s
on 1 October, has been suddenly postponed chance to put its money where its mouth is,
says Paul King
HUSH HUSH
What’s claimed to be the world’s quietest
building opens at Bristol University (left) 18 PRACTICE
BRUSH UP YOUR CAREER
Westminister University is offering a free
08 NEWS IN PICTURES programme to help recession-hit built
SET FOR LIFE environment professionals get their careers
Pinewood Studio’s plans for homes on set back on track

12 NEWS ANALYSIS
TESTING THE WATER
Guide to the new emphasis on water
efficiency in the revised Part G

20
FEATURES

20 BUILDING ANALYSIS 28 RENEWABLE ENERGY

COUNTY CHAMPION SO LONG, SOLAR?
Hampshire County Council’s brutalist 60s Will the UK’s feed-in tariff help save the day
HQ is transformed into a good-looking, for the photovoltaics industry?
top-class energy performer

26 PEOPLE
Jim O’Neil, chairman of contractor focus
group M&E Sustainability, explains why
greener working practices makes good
business sense
31 DESIGN TOOLS
3D VISUALISATION MADE EASY
Why hard-headed services engineers are
seduced by Google’s SketchUp
34 FIRE REGULATIONS
WHEN ONE’S ENOUGH
Comparison of English and German
requirements for single-stair high-rise
buildings

38 AT THE BACK
TECHNICAL

38 AIR-HANDLING
WON BY A NOSE
How 35 scents were puffed to each opera- 52 WWW.BSD4JOBS.COM
goer’s nose at a New York premiere Hilson Moran is recruiting, while the
College of Estate Management and Salford
University are promoting their courses
42 DESIGN PRIMER
SOLAR SHADING
Stop heat gain without losing daylight 54 WWW.BSDLIVE.CO.UK
Kate Nelson of Capita
Symons on her love affair
45 CPD with her Mac – and a
PLASTIC PIPES website selling one-off,
Add to your CPD points handmade items

50 PRODUCTS
HEALTHCARE
Hygiene and infection control

ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009

06 NEWS REVIEW
INDUSTRY
UPDATE
New water regs put on hold
Revisions to Part G of the Building
Regulations, which covers water use,
have been delayed at the 11th hour.
The revised regulations were due
NEWS&OPINION
to come into force on 1 October, but
the Department for Communities
and Local Government (CLG) has
confirmed that the delay could be
up to six months.
Part G deals with sanitation, hot
water safety and water efficiency.
The Building Regulations Approved
Document which outlined the pro-
posed changes has already been
published. This document will now
have to be amended.
An industry source claimed the
delay was because of an objection
raised by the European Commission.
CLG refused to confirm this and the
EC was unable to comment before
BSD went to press.
But the claim was supported by
Geoff Wilkinson, spokesman for the
Association of Consultant Approved
Inspectors.
He told BSD he was alerted to the
delay by contacts at the Building
Regulatory Advisory Committee.
EA sets standard
The Environment Agency’s new cor-
porate office in Bristol has achieved
the highest BREEAM rating yet
awarded.
Its score of 85.06% was achieved
under BREEAM 2006 (no office
buildings have yet been rated under
BREEAM 2008) so it is the green-
est office development in the UK,
the EA claims.
The city centre building has rain-
water harvesting, intelligent light-
ing systems, natural ventilation and
a ground source heat pump.
Recycled materials were used dur-
ing construction.
Hoare Lea was the services engi-
neer for the project.
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
Wilkinson suggested the “signif-
icant issue” that led CLG to pull the
document was an objection by an
EU member state under the
Technical Standards Directive.
He said that under the directive,
this meant the document was now
at a three-month standstill and CLG
was prohibited from introducing the
revised Approved Document before
2 December.
“The language from CLG sug-
gests that this is a barrier-to-trade
issue,” he said. “That would suggest
that one or other of the member
states feels something within the
document will prevent it from trad-
ing in the UK.”
Wilkinson said one possible rea-
son for the objection was the new
stipulation in the document which
called for thermostatic controls on
bath taps to keep the water temper-
ature at less than 48C.
“When the consultation began,
there were a range of options as to
how we should control water use,”
he said.
“The view was to go down the
The “greenest office in the UK”.
EA chief executive Paul Leinster
said: “By relocating to a more effi-
cient building the agency will save
around 10% every year on opera-
tional and energy costs, an estimat-
ed £180,000 saving per year.”
EA staff now scattered across
three sites will begin moving into
The Energy Solutions
Expo is being held
at the London Olympia
7-8 October. The trade event
is still open for registration.
Go to
www.
energy-expo.info
for more details.
route of water limitation via a water
calculator method [see news analy-
sis, page 12] rather than by limiting
the sale of fittings that didn’t com-
ply. So if it is down to this issue of
thermostatic controls, it’s very
surprising.”
CLG was unable to say when the
document would be updated. A
spokeswoman said there was no set
date as yet, but the short-term aim
was to “resolve the issues raised and
to issue a final Approved Document
as far in advance” of the changes
coming into force in the six-month
window ending in April next year.
Although this leaves designers in
a regulatory grey area until the issue
is resolved, Wilkinson does not antic-
ipate that the document will be much
altered.
He said: “The document will most
likely go out as originally published,
but it does make us wonder what it
will in turn mean for the Part L con-
sultation which is currently under
way.”
Follow developments on www.bsdlive.co.uk
the new office late next year, with
official opening of the building in
April 2011.
The agency’s 6500m2 office is
part of a mixed scheme by develop-
er Westmark which includes 78
apartments and a second, smaller
office development.

Call for aviation CO2 cap
Carbon emissions from the avia-
tion sector could endanger the UK’s
overall carbon reduction targets if
left unchecked, says the Committee
on Climate Change.
The CCC said cutting gross
aviation emission to 2005 levels in
the run-up to 2050, together with
90% emission cuts in other sectors,
would be necessary to achieve the
economy-wide 80% emissions
reductions required under EU law
by 2050.
The independent body made its
remarks in a letter to transport sec-
retary Andrew Adonis and energy
secretary Ed Miliband. It said avi-
ation CO2 emissions should be
capped through a global deal, lim-
iting them to 2005 levels.
Unless capped, aviation will
account for 15-20% of all CO2 emis-
sions by 2050, the CCC said.
This means other sectors of the
economy may have to increase their
overall emission reduction target
from 80%, as stipulated in the
Climate Change Act, to 90% in
order to compensate for the avia-
tion industry.
A spokeswoman for the
Department of Energy and Climate
Change (DECC) said the UK has
the toughest climate change
regime for aviation of any coun-
GLOBAL FOCUS
US
A study of almost 650 buildings
shows commissioning costs can
be recouped in a year through
energy savings. Lawrence Berkley
National Laboratory, California,
found that recommissioning an
existing building could generate
average energy savings of 16%,
while for a new building the
figure is 13%. The cost of the
work is recouped in 1.1 years and
4.2 years respectively. In the UK,
changes to Part L of the Building
Regulations, which are due to
come into effect next year, put
increased emphasis on
commissioning.
try in the world, and that the gov-
ernment would make aviation emis-
sions central to a global deal on cli-
mate change at the Copenhagen
conference later this year.
She said: “The issue isn’t about
the growth of the sector, flying less
or building fewer runways, it’s about
capping our emissions and the gov-
ernment is already leading the way
on this.”
Greenpeace said carbon emis-
sions from the British economy “will
have to be squeezed till the pips
squeak” in order to accommodate
the “binge-flying culture” it claims
is promoted by government.
The lobby group said the credi-
bility of building a third runway at
London Heathrow airport was
called into question.
A Greenpeace spokeswoman
said: “Even without the proposed
expansion of aviation, the UK indus-
try is going to find it very hard to
offset its emissions through trad-
ing carbon.
“Other industries such as the
power sector will have to reduce
their emissions even further to cre-
ate room for the aviation sector to
grow even more.
“Electricity consumers could
end up footing the bill,” she
claimed.
Japan
Japan’s new prime minister Yukio
Hatoyama has pledged to cut the
country’s greenhouse gas
emissions by 25% on 1990 levels
by 2020. His predecessor, Taro Aso,
had promised cuts of 8%. However
Hatoyama did say that the target
depended on the outcome of
international climate change
summit in Copenhagen in
December. The new Japanese
administration is said to be
planning to achieve its aim by
introducing emissions trading,
low-energy technologies in cars,
subsidising solar panels and
refurbishing housing stock.
LIZ EVE FOTOHAUS
IN BRIEF
Dim the lights
Phasing out of incandescent and
halogen light bulbs has begun
under EU regulations that came
into effect last month. Retailers
have until 2012 to sell their stock.
Coloured lamps are not affected.
Power boost
Energy secretary Ed Miliband is
proposing to revamp the way
power plants get connected to
the UK grid. The shake-up, part
of the government’s Low Carbon
Transition Plan, is aimed at
getting new projects on the grid
more quickly. The Department for
Energy and Climate Change
(DECC) says about 200 projects
UAE
Masdar Institute of Science and
Technology in Abu Dhabi has
opened its doors to students. It is
the world’s first graduate
institution dedicated to the
research of alternative energy,
environmental technologies and
sustainability. Ninety-two
NEWS REVIEW 07
Hush hush
What is claimed to be the quietest
building in the world has opened.
Bristol University’s £11m Centre for
Nanoscience and Quantum
Information has laboratories where
vibration and noise levels are
among the lowest ever achieved.
The building was designed by
Capita Symonds’ architectural
division Capita Architecture whose
director, Iain Martin, said: “The
building vibrates at the lowest
recorded levels. This has allowed
scientists to work at the sub-
atomic level within weeks of
moving into the laboratories.
“It can take months or years to
eliminate sources of vibration to
allow you to work at this level.”
are waiting to be connected, with
a potential generation capacity of
over 60GW, of which 17GW is
from renewable sources.
Consultation on how the system
will work closes on 17 November.
New adviser role
The government is to appoint a
chief adviser on construction to
chair the board for government
procurement and help promote
innovation and sustainability.
Rudi Klein, chief executive of the
Specialist Engineering
Contractors’ Group, and Vaughan
Burnand, chairman of
Constructing Excellence, are
possible contenders.
students, chosen from more than
1200 applicants worldwide, are
studying on a two-year master’s
programme. The UAE has
contributed the highest number of
students, with 13% of the total,
and women make up almost 30%
of the student body.
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
08 NEWS

BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09

 NEWS 09

IN PICTURES
SET FOR
LIFE
Pinewood Studios Group is turning
property developer with plans for
homes and workspace integrated in
film and television sets that
replicate the streets of cities such
as Paris (main image), New York or
Amsterdam (inset below).
Instead of the usual backless
film sets, the 46ha expansion of
Pinewood’s site in Buckinghamshire
will create a community linked to
the existing studio.
When used for filming the
development will cut the carbon
emissions associated with going on
location, and the costs. The studio
hopes this will inspire young screen
talents working to tight budgets.
Carbon emissions from film and
television productions shot at the
site could be at least 45% less than
those going on location, according
to Pinewood. The saving could be
increased to 77% if the film crews
used energy from offsite low- and
zero-carbon sources.
The mixed-use scheme submitted
to planners includes up to 1400
homes, more than a third of them
affordable housing, built within the
streetscapes, as well as small units
for creative industries. Locals will
be able to walk to work along a
replica of a Venetian canal, then
through colonial New Orleans or
perhaps Amsterdam.
The new lot will also be home to
Pinewood Screen Crafts Academy,
which has been set up to
encourage young people to work in
trades within the film and
television industries.
The studio says Project Pinewood
will create about 630 jobs, rising to
960 by 2022.
Arup has worked on the
masterplan for the project, and
Pinewood Studios Group will use a
variety of architects for the
different elements.

ISSUE 09
9 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
“I HAVE ENOUGH
ON MY PLATE WITHOUT
HAVING TO CONSIDER
WHETHER WE’VE
CHOSEN THE RIGHT
SUBCONTRACTORS”
Duncan Pierce,
Director, Page Associates

ECA electrical contractors are

periodically assessed to ensure
their technical competence

ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT.

To find an ECA contractor
that’s right for you:
www.eca.co.uk
12 NEWS ANALYSIS
TESTING
THE WATER
The revised Part G
puts the emphasis on
efficiency. Austin
Williams explains
the part played by the
new water calculator.
T
he new Building Regulations
(England and Wales) Approved
Document G explicitly states that
not only should water be used less
profligately than it is at present, but also
that designers must provide evidence to
that effect.
Regulation 17 states that local
authorities will be within their rights to
withhold a completion statement until a
certificate specifying the calculated water
consumption has been submitted. It is
important to realise that this certificate will
not indicate the actual water consumption
within that dwelling – how could it? It is
merely a guesstimate in the same way that
the energy performance certificate
frequently bears no relation to the actual
energy usage.
For example, the most energy- and
water-efficient house could be occupied by
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
someone who loves 10 hot baths every day;
conversely, an inefficient home could be
owned by someone who washes in a bucket.
The new Part G was due to come into
force this month, but BSD understands it is
now expected to be delayed until April (see
news, page 8). Previously titled simply as
“Hygiene”, the latest version is titled
“Sanitation, hot water safety and water
efficiency”. It applies to the erection,
extension and material alteration of a
building, not just dwellings. In fact, the new
Part G will apply to all new buildings – and
building designs – approved after it comes
into force, except where:
■ work has commenced before that date; or
■ a plans certificate has been given before
that date.
Even though the word no longer
appears in the title, hygiene is still an
important feature of the new Part G. For

example, a sink must be provided wherever
food is prepared, a recommendation not
previously included. But it is the
performance targets that make this
document stand out.
Part G now sets a target limit of 125
litres of water use per person per day, which
is only 25 litres or so per person less than
that currently used in the average
household.
HARDLY ONEROUS
Advocates of the changes point out that it
ought not to be too onerous to make such
reductions. Already, housing associations
are installing smaller baths, and dual-flush
WCs are now common, cutting the water
use from 9l per flush to 4l.
The 125l domestic target includes 5l
per person per day for outdoor use –
watering the garden, say – so dwellings
NEWS ANALYSIS 13
“
without a garden could consider omitting
the external use quota and work to a target
of 120l per person per day. This is the
equivalent of level 1/2 of the Code for
To attain the highest Sustainable Homes (CSH).
To attain CSH level 6 – the highest
sustainability rating, a sustainability rating – a domestic property
home must use no more must use no more than 80l per person per
day. To put that in perspective, the United
than 80 litres of water per Nations says the average in Africa is 68l per
person per day.
person per day. In Africa, One of the important stipulations of
the average is 68 litres the new Part G is that all washing, cleaning
and drinking outlets must have
“wholesome” water, which is water that is
supplied to a building for domestic
”
purposes such as cooking, drinking, food
preparation or washing. It used to be called
– and within the CSH, it still is – potable
water.
“Non-wholesome” water includes ¢
ISSUE 09
9 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
14 NEWS ANALYSIS

WATER CALCULATOR FOR NEW DWELLINGS people die every year in the UK as a result
of bathwater scalding in their homes.
Installation type Unit Capacity/ Use Fixed use Litres/ Rhianna Hardie, an 18-month-old girl,
of measure flow rate factor (litres/ person/day suffered fatal burns when a tank with a
person/day) =[(1)x(2)]
faulty thermostat collapsed and flooded her
+(3)
(1) (2) (3) (4) cot. In the light of accidents such as this,
WC (single flush) Flush volume (litres) 4.42 0.00 when metal or plastic cisterns are replaced
WC (dual flush) Full-flush 1.46 0.00 or upgraded, the supports must also be
volume (litres) upgraded to provide “adequate” structural
Part-flush 2.96 0.00 support capable of supporting the cistern
volume (litres) when full to the brim. In addition, any hot
WCs (multiple fittings) Average effective 4.42 0.00 water storage container should have two
flushing volume (litres) safety devices to prevent the temperature of
Taps (excluding Flow rate (litres/ 1.58 1.58 the water, which may become pressurised,
kitchen taps) minute) exceeding 100C.
Bath (where shower Capacity to 0.11 0.00
also present) overflow (litres)
INTRIGUING STATISTICS
Shower (where bath Flow rate (litres/ 4.37 0.00
also present) minute) As mentioned earlier, a “water efficiency
Bath only Capacity to 0.50 0.00 calculator for new dwellings” (see left) must
overflow (litres) be used to assess the notional water
Shower only Flow rate (litres/ 5.60 0.00 consumption. The water calculator tells us
minute) intriguing statistics, such as that we full-
Kitchen sink taps Flow rate (litres/ 0.44 10.36 flush a dual-flush toilet 1.46 times a day.
minute) Each water-using fixture or fitting has
Washing machine Litres/kg dry load 2.1 0.00 to be assessed and its capacity in litres, or
Dishwasher Litres/place setting 3.6 0.00 its flow rate in litres per second (taken from
Waste disposal unit Litres/use If present = 1 3.08 0.00
manufacturer’s data), entered in a table.
If absent = 0
Water softener Litres/person/day 1.00 0.00 Multiplying by a use factor gives a figure
5 Total calculated use (litres/ for the amount used per person per day. The
person/day) = ∑ (column 4) figures are added together to get the total
(6) Contribution from greywater water consumption of the home, which is
(litres/person/day) from Table 4 divided by the number of occupants to give
(7) Contribution from rainwater the per person rate.
(litres/person/day) from Table 5 Any recycled or harvested water is
(8) Normalisation factor 0.91 discounted from the total and the external
(9) Total water consumption (Code water use factor of 5l per person per day is
for Sustainable Homes) = added to give the full and final total water
[(5) - (6) - (7)] x (8) consumption rates.
(litres/person/day) Non-fixed flow-reducers, such as the
water-saving Hippo for WCs, should not be
(10) External water use 5.0 included in the calculations as occupants
(11) Total water consumption (Part G) can easily remove them and distort the
= (9) + (10) (litres/person/day) water-use rating results.
It is clear that the new Part G is
chasing, to some extent, the Code for

¢ water for flushing and laundry use,
such as:
■ harvested rainwater captured from roofs,
water butts, etc, and treated to make it
appropriate for certain prescribed uses
■ water abstracted from wells, springs and
other natural sources
■ reclaimed greywater (treated waste
water), which can be used for WC flushing
and for washing machines
■ reclaimed industrial processes – such as
air-conditioning condensate – which can be
Sustainable Homes, on the
used in carefully controlled circumstances
in buildings other than dwellings.
Hot water must be provided to all
washbasins, showers and fixed baths in
“
Sustainable Homes, which sets clear
standards for the environmental
performance of dwellings. The water
element is a mandatory aspect of the final
The last revision of rating – from the least environmentally
sensitive level 1 to the notionally zero-
Part G was in 2000 but it carbon level 6.
has not really changed The last revision of Part G was in 2000
but to all intents and purposes it has not
since 1992. The Code for really changed since 1992. The CSH, on the
other hand, has been revised every six
months. Whether this rate of change is
other hand, has been itself sustainable, only time will tell, but as a
more flexible, responsive document it is
revised every six months likely that the CSH, rather than Part G, will
push designers in the direction of water

”
sanitary conveniences and residential efficiencies in future.
accommodation. To minimise the risk of
scalding, there must be thermostatic Austin Williams is the architectural producer at NBS
Learning Channels and author of Shortcuts.
controls on bath taps to keep the
temperature to less than 48C. About 20 More on the new Part G at bsdlive.co.uk

BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09

Cruz 160 LED
Cruz LED sets a new technology benchmark for lighting
general spaces with LEDs. It combines high power LEDs
with active air cooling technology for efficient and low glare
illumnination.

The new downlight outperforms compact fluorescent (CFL) in terms of

energy efficiency and quality of light from a third smaller aperture.

It delivers 2,000 lumens, with an LOR of 94% in either warm white (3000K, 51
lm/W) or cool white (4000K, 55 lm/W), equating to 2 x 26W CFL downlights.
Colour performance is consistent (Ra 80).

Cruz LED is DALI dimmable and delivers 100% instant light with a rated life of
50,000 hours (70% lumen maintenance), which is five times that of a CFL.

www.thornlighting.co.uk Lighting people and places


OPINION
DAY OF
RECKONING
The first World Green Building Day is the
construction industry’s chance to show how
much it could contribute to carbon
reduction, says Paul King.
B
elieve it or not, buildings have
been the poor relation when it
comes to international efforts to
tackle climate change. This is
ridiculous, especially when you consider
that in 2007, a report by Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change showed that the
opportunity for cost-effective carbon
reductions from buildings is almost twice as
big as in any other sector. Even more
ridiculous given that we’re talking about the
source of 40% of global emissions.
The arrival of this issue of BSD chimes
with the first World Green Building Day on
23 September, an international series of
events and activities, which seeks to
emphasise the importance of buildings in
the run-up to the crucial Copenhagen
climate change negotiations in December.
As part of these activities, the UK
Green Building Council is promoting a call
to action – a global petition organised by
the United Nations Environment
Programme’s Sustainable Building and
Climate Initiative, of which it is a member.
The call to action is pretty simple. It
highlights the potential for buildings to
provide some of the greatest, most cost-
effective and fastest opportunities to tackle
climate change and in turn help create jobs
and boost national economies. It also
recognises the role of buildings in adapting
to the impact of climate change. Most
importantly, it will show the strength of
feeling in the construction and property
sector for being a big part of the solution.
This is not just rhetoric. The rapid
spread of building rating assessment tools
across the UK and Europe, US, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa
and elsewhere illustrates that industry and
the market are already acting to drive down
emissions from the sector.
But, as highlighted by BSD’s feature
last month on differences between the
leading rating tools, this is not enough on
its own. It could be downright unhelpful if
these tools are not comparing like with like,
leading to misunderstandings about how
different buildings perform in key respects.
That’s why the leading organisations
promoting sustainable building have come
together to create a global framework for
the consistent measurement of the carbon
footprint of buildings, as the basis for
driving improvements in performance.
It is the quality (or lack of it) of real,
accurate, comparable data that is one of the
main reasons buildings haven’t played a
bigger role in the negotiation. It’s one
reason why only 12 of the 4500 projects in
the Clean Development Mechanism [a
system that allows developing countries to
earn credits for emission reduction
projects] pipeline as of April 2009 are
“
Our attention is likely to
shift towards energy-
efficiency refurbishment
at home, but there will
still be a thriving market
for new buildings
overseas
”
COMMENT 17
This regular column is provided by
the UK Green Building Council and
its members
focused on energy demand reductions in
buildings – an incredible statistic. So
agreement on consistent measurement of
carbon cannot come soon enough.
Why does all this matter? A post-
Copenhagen climate change treaty that
puts a greater emphasis on the built
environment will see a gear change in
sustainable building activity around the
world. The smart money will be invested in
buildings that are “future-proofed” in terms
of their energy efficiency. UK companies
will have to respond to ever-more stringent
regulation and powerful financial drivers,
based on the growing cost of carbon.
But, driven by the leadership the UK
government has shown with the Climate
Change Act and legally binding carbon
budgets, they are also extremely well placed
to take advantage of the huge potential
growth in interest in sustainable buildings
in the rapidly developing economies. In the
UK we know that 75-85% of the buildings in
use in 2050 are already standing today, but
this is far from the case in places like China,
India or Brazil. So while our attention is
very likely to shift towards the energy-
efficient refurbishment of buildings at
home, there will still be a thriving market
for new buildings overseas.
There’s a lot going on in Europe too.
The Energy Performance of Buildings
Directive II is shaping up to be a sequel to
keep you on the edge of your seats. And
given that well-intentioned people in
Brussels will be deciding what should
constitute a zero carbon building, and when
everyone across Europe should be
delivering them, the UK industry needs to
be at the forefront of these discussions.
Paul King is chief executive of the UK Green
Building Council, www.ukgbc.org
For more opinions, www.bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
18 PRACTICE
PROFESSIONAL
BRUSH UP
YOUR CAREER
A free course is on
offer to building
professionals cast
adrift in the recession.
Krystal Sim reports.
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
B
uilt environment professionals
must train to work together now in
order to meet the demands of the
future. That is the belief of
Professor Jeremy Till, dean of the school of
architecture and the built environment at
Westminster University. He is the driving
force behind Build Up, a programme
established to help workers who have been
made redundant or have had their hours cut
because of the recession.
Professor Till believes that the boom
did nothing to bring built environment
professionals together. “Certain values in
design were sidelined,” he says. “People
were too busy making money, making
so-called iconic architecture, or cheap
cruddy architecture, for that matter. The
recession is an opportunity to open the
industry up to other possibilities.”
He wanted to encourage more
multidisciplinary ways of working, and
approached the Higher Education Funding
Council for England. It awarded £400,000
from the Economic Challenge Investment
Fund, which was match-funded by the
university, and the programme was
developed with the help of the Construction
Industry Council and professional bodies
such as CIBSE and RIBA.
There will be 1500 places available
over the course of the year-long initiative,
which is open to architects, engineers, town
planners, surveyors, construction
professionals, housing professionals and
urban designers.
The free programme is divided into
three strands. Strand one, called Career
Focus, is a one-day introductory workshop
which gives participants a chance to set
goals, meet their peers and examine where
they are in their careers.

Participants can then select up to three
modules from a large range of courses in
strand two. The courses on offer range from
masterplanning and team building to
leadership and low-carbon development.
The third strand, called Innovation
Collaboration, will see them working on live
projects in multidisciplinary teams for 8-10
weeks. The projects, involving local
authorities and not-for-profit organisations,
will focus on low-carbon and sustainability
issues.
Laura Harding, project director for
Build Up and no stranger to redundancy
herself, says the chief strength of the
programme for individual participants is
the support it offers in the form of
networking. For the built environment
sector, it will hopefully help to prevent the
significant loss of skills seen in the last
recession.
“I’ve been made redundant more times
than I care to admit,” Harding says. “The
worry is dropping off the map.
“When you lose your job, losing your
network is a real danger. Times have
changed since the last recession but we
can’t assume that everyone is clued up
about networks such as LinkedIn.
“Receiving training that can help you
to transfer skills and learn new ones is
obviously important, but offering people a
support network and a platform for
discussion can only be a positive.”
SILO MENTALITY
Till believes a programme such as this
could prevent the construction sector from
working in silos. “The industry has
definitely had a silo mentality,” he says.
“Part of the problem with building
services design is that often those working
on the project are so busy with the
construction of the building that they do a
basic kit-out – just enough for compliance.
Engineers perhaps haven’t had enough
opportunities to design out the kit. That’s
the future.”
While the course is scheduled to run
only for a year, Harding hopes it will have a
long-term legacy. She speaks passionately
about the potential difference it could make
to those facing difficulties.
“During the last recession we lost
people to bar work. We want to keep them
in the sector. While we don’t want recent
graduates, we want to be inclusive and give
everyone a boost. We’re already talking
about what’s working and how to introduce
that into the wider university, but my first
port of call is to help people having a hard
time in the short term.”
Built environment professionals who are interested in
applying for a place on the Build Up programme can
get more details at
www.build-up.org.uk
LEGAL
KEEP CALM AND
CARRY ON
Employers should all be taking some easy, practical steps
to protect staff from a flu epidemic – and have a
contingency plan if the risk worsens, says Tim Hill.
A
n often overlooked phrase in
Section 2 of the Health &
Safety at Work Act 1974 is the
duty to ensure, so far as is
reasonably practicable, the health, safety
“and welfare” of employees. This
encompasses a duty to warn and, where
necessary, protect employees from
contagious diseases such as swine flu.
It is not about knee-jerk reactions
such as advising staff to wear masks or
stay away from work en masse. While
swine flu is very contagious, it is only
passed from person to person, not from
animals or meat products; it is little
different to the usual winter outbreaks.
So what is it “reasonably
practicable” for an employer to do? Steps
you should be taking now include:
■ Providing staff with access to the latest
government information and advice, via
a business-wide email with links to the
HSE and government’s websites, or by
putting up posters in staff areas.
■ Advising staff who show symptoms to
stay away until completely recovered.
■ Looking out for signs of employees
forcing themselves to come to work even
when they are plainly unwell.
■ Encouraging staff to follow basic
hygiene procedures such as regular hand-
washing, use of disposable handkerchiefs
which are immediately thrown away.
■ Suggesting staff who feel unwell take
time off to visit their GP for a proper
diagnosis.
■ Providing alcohol handwash in
restrooms.
■ Reviewing cleaning arrangements.
Swine flu is mainly transmitted by
residual germs on surfaces such as door
handles. Increasing cleaning frequency is
likely to reduce the life of residual germs.
In some circumstances more drastic
measures, such as temporary suspension
of certain operations to reduce the spread
of illness, may be necessary. Managing
absence will pose organisational and
staffing issues – and some tricky legal
points such as what, if any, payments
absent employees should receive. If a
workplace has to close temporarily, an
PRACTICE 19
employee’s contract may provide for
enforced holiday or lay-offs. If employees
cannot attend because of their personal
circumstances or travel facilities, there is
unlikely to be a specific contractual term
addressing this. Consideration will need
to be given to issues such as the right to
stay at home for emergency childcare,
flexible working and home-working
policies. Consider custom and practice in
the context of occupational sick pay; the
risk being that this has become a
contractual right for employees.
Where there are no contractual
terms addressing potential epidemics,
employees may be prepared to agree
short-term changes to their terms and
conditions such as unpaid leave.
Particular consideration should be
given to pregnant workers, asthmatics
and those with impaired immune
systems, who are likely to be more
vulnerable to infection. Employers must
ensure new or expectant mothers are not
exposed to significant risk, including
infectious diseases. This may require a
temporary change in role, or paid
suspension until the risk has passed.
What, then, of the headlines
claiming that employers can expect a raft
of civil actions from ill staff? These would
be very difficult to prove compared with,
say, legionnaires’ disease where the
unusual nature of the illness coupled
with the specific conditions make it far
easier to pinpoint a source of infection.
The likelihood of an employer
facing any sort of HSE or local authority
enforcement action is extremely low for
failure to provide swine flu advice, but
responsible employers already recognise
that this is not the driving force for a
positive health and safety culture. It is
well documented that healthy workplaces
and healthy employees are better for
business, so by taking a few simple steps
to keep staff informed, good employers
should reap the benefits of continued
good attendance and productivity.
Tim Hill is a partner in the Regulatory Group of
Eversheds LLP
For more on legal matters, go to www.bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
 COUNTY
CHAMPION
Once an inefficient 1960s eyesore,
FEATURES
this county council HQ proves
refurbishment can be low energy and
look good. Thomas Lane reports.
A
shburton Court, Hampshire
County Council’s brutal 1960s
concrete headquarters, was never
easy on the eye. Latterly its
environmental profile hadn’t been looking
good either.
“It was a pretty inefficient building
with a carbon footprint of 100kg of CO2/m2
per year,” says Steve Clow, assistant director
of property services at the council. “It had
inefficient plant plus it was naturally
ventilated but that didn’t work – it was hot
in summer and cold in winter.” He could
have added that the roof leaked and it was a
depressing place to work.
Rather than knocking it down and
starting again on the Winchester city centre
site, the council decided to refurbish the
building. “We reckon it would have cost
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
twice as much to demolish it and start over
again,” says Clow. A root-and-branch
refurbishment meant the local authority got
a building suitable for 21st-century working
practices for half price. But the council set
an ambitious target of cutting energy use in
half too.
When the project started newbuild
was the norm, but during the recession
refurbishment has become more popular.
Making old structures energy efficient is
difficult at the best of times but Elizabeth II
Court, as the building has been renamed, is
one of the best-performing in the country.
Faced with such unpromising material, how
did the project team achieve such a
transformation?
Hampshire first appointed Bennetts
Associates, an architect renowned for low-

Main photo: Tim Crocker. Inset: courtyard before refurbishment.
BUILDING ANALYSIS 21
energy office design. Bennetts told the
council that a good services engineer was
essential. “We said that to meet the
aspirations of the project we would need to
work with the best engineers in the country
to ensure it was deliverable,” says Julian
Lipscombe, a director at Bennetts. “There
are only a couple of engineers that can do
that and one of those is Ernest Griffiths, so
we bid for the project as a joint venture.”
The two firms had worked together on
early low-energy schemes, such as
Powergen’s naturally ventilated
headquarters in Coventry, completed in
1994, but they were uncompromised
newbuild projects on greenfield sites. There
was no blank slate at Ashburton Court. It
had, for example, low floor-to-ceiling
heights which ruled out a low-energy ¢
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
22 BUILDING ANALYSIS
Bright, open-plan spaces replace long central corridors flanked by cellular offices (inset).
¢ displacement ventilation system as there
was insufficient space for the necessary
stratification of air. There was room for a
four-pipe fan coil system – hardly a low-
energy solution. So Bennetts went for its
trademark solution: natural ventilation.
Could this be made to work in an old
building next to busy roads with substantial
traffic noise? Bennetts thought it was
feasible. “It was a brutal building but the
raw material of it was pretty good,” says
Lipscombe. “It had 12m deep floorplates,
potentially good daylighting and a
courtyard in the centre for the natural
ventilation strategy. We felt the restricted
floor-to-ceiling heights could be made to
work for a modern office environment.”
Lipscombe adds that reusing the concrete
structure saved 50% of the embodied
energy of a new building.
The challenge was to find a way of
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
naturally ventilating the building and
blotting out the road noise. The old natural
ventilation strategy had not worked partly
because staff were reluctant to open
windows next to busy roads. A possible
solution lay in the fact that Ashburton
Court consists of two buildings, an
L-shaped block bordering the north and
west side of the site and a second block to
the east. They sit on a podium above four
levels of car park with a courtyard in the
centre. (The podium had also been used for
parking, although the plan was to banish
cars from this level.)
This meant windows could be opened
on one side of both blocks, overlooking the
courtyard, but not on the other side of the
floorplate to promote cross-ventilation. “We
liked the fact it was difficult to do; it was a
real intellectual challenge,” says Lipscombe.
The team had the idea of running ducts up
Tim Crocker (2)
the sides of the buildings facing the road
and venting the air at the top. A kink in the
ducts near the top and sound deadening
lining would stop traffic noise entering the
building.
It sounded good in theory but would it
work? Would the ducts create enough
“suck” to pull air from the courtyard
through the building and out of the ducts,
irrespective of wind direction? Charles
Pearson, Ernest Griffiths’ services engineer
on the project, was unsure because he does
not believe the stack effect works at normal
air temperatures. “The only successful
example of stack ventilation I have done
was in a turbine hall, which was very hot at
the bottom and cool at the top,” he says.
“The rate of rise of air at temperatures that
are comfortable to people is minimal.”
Pearson believes the main reason
stacks work is because of the Venturi effect:

The podium courtyard between the two blocks acts as part of the ventilation strategy.
wind passing over the top of a duct causes a
pressure drop that pulls air up through the
duct. This meant checking there was
enough wind at the Winchester site to
create the Venturi effect and using
modelling to ensure it would work.
Ernest Griffiths called in
Environmental Design Solutions, which
developed Tas thermal simulation software.
Alan Jones, the firm’s managing director,
was to gather the weather information and
do the number crunching.
The nearest weather data available was
for Southampton airport, 15 miles away, but
that is a cool marine environment, different
from inland Winchester. Instead Jones used
data from the BRE site, near Watford, which
he felt was closer to the conditions in
Winchester. This made the job for the
design team even more challenging
because they would be working with higher
The old concrete facade
(above) is broken up with
external ducts clad in
locally sourced brick (left).
typical temperatures. The good news was
that modelling showed the idea would be
workable.
“The key discovery was there was
virtually no day in the year where there was
no wind,” says Pearson. “The modelling
suggested the airflow is always from the
courtyard side as the suction from the
chimneys is greater than the wind pressure,
which means it doesn’t matter which way
the wind is blowing.”
The team also did wind tunnel testing
at Cardiff University. This revealed two
areas where there wasn’t sufficient wind
to pull air up through the ducts. An
adjacent 1950s building, also belonging to
the council, created a wind shadow at the
southern end of the east block because it
was taller than Ashburton Court. There
was also an area on the north side with
insufficient wind pressure at courtyard ¢
BUILDING ANALYSIS 23
ELECTRICAL SERVICES
IN DETAIL
Electrical supplies at Elizabeth II
Court are segregated into essential
and non-essential services. A new
800kW/1250kVA diesel generator
set backs up the essential services,
such as the data centre and its
cooling systems and firefighting
lifts. Other county council facilities
are also covered by this generator.
Power factor correction is
installed for all supplies, and a
comprehensive system of network
metering is provided on all main
switchboards and on many local
system circuits. Power is
distributed around the site directly
to plant rooms and other major
consumer areas and via rising
busbars to office areas. Distribution
within office areas is via under-
floor busbar system, serving mainly
trailing socket outlets directly
installed in desks via grommets in
the floor, or via floorboxes.
For the data centre, three UPS
systems from Uninterruptible
Power Supplies Ltd have been
installed, capable of providing up to
300kW in total. A fourth UPS may
be added when the data centre
reaches full capacity.
Lighting to general office areas
is a linear suspended T5
uplighter/downlighter system by
Siteco, using Ex-Or presence- and
daylight-detectors. The switching
system is programmable to allow
different luminaires to be grouped
as required to serve specific areas,
to define corridors, etc. All lights
within office areas are switched by
the Ex-Or system, and output
intensity is controlled across the
full floorplate width. To meet
specific functional requirements,
such as video conferencing, manual
switching is provided.
Lighting to most other areas in
the building is by a variety of
manufacturers and tends to be
locally switched according to the
function of the space. Lighting to
stairs and to WCs is PIR controlled;
lighting for stairs with suitable
daylight sources is held off until
the natural contribution drops to an
unacceptable level. Lighting to
external areas is minimal to reduce
energy consumption.
Five new passenger lifts have
been installed and a further goods
lift for the kitchen areas. Another
goods lift will be installed shortly
to improve loading. Three of the
passenger lifts also operate as
firefighting lifts.
The BMS, supplied by Andover
Controls, is an open architecture
system allowing easy upgrades or
changes.
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
24 BUILDING ANALYSIS
¢ level. The solution was to insert
mechanically ventilated meeting rooms in
these two areas.
With the design verified, the work
went ahead and the county council staff got
their shiny new accommodation in less than
three years. The long central corridors
flanked by cellular offices have been swept
away and replaced with bright, open-plan
spaces. Slim light fittings shine light
downwards and upwards to bounce it off the
soffit. This is a waffle slab, typical of the
1960s, and is a reminder of the building’s
origins – the marks left by the original
suspended ceiling hangers are visible. The
internal spaces don’t feel at all oppressive
despite the low floor-to-ceiling heights.
Each window to the office spaces has
an openable toplight controlled by the BMS
and a manually opening window below. At
night the BMS opens the toplight so air can
flow into the building from the courtyard.
This passes out through a grille into the
duct and out at the top, the night air cools
the exposed concrete soffit.
Unusually for a naturally ventilated
building, there is no back-up cooling
system, which has saved the client money.
The design allows the building temperature
to float up to 27C and Ernest Griffiths
concedes it could go higher if wind speeds
aren’t sufficient to pull air through the
offices. Pearson says the key is the
difference between external and interior
temperatures, so if the building were 2-3C
cooler than outside, this would be
acceptable as people would dress for warm
conditions. The building is reasonably
airtight with an air pressure test result of
5m3/m2/h at 50pa.
During the day the BMS opens the
toplights if the temperature rises. A flap in
the duct opens simultaneously, allowing
cross-ventilation of the offices. Each vertical
duct is separated into three sections – one
for each of the three lower floors. This
prevents noise transfer between floors and
ensures the building meets fire regulations.
The top, fourth floor of offices has
opening windows on both sides because it
is sufficiently high up for traffic noise not to
be a problem. Workers can override the
BMS by pushing a switch or simply open
the lower part of the window for more air.
The staff have been educated about the
principles behind the system to try to cut
the risk of the building heating up because
too many windows have been opened.
In winter, when opening the windows
is not an option, 17 air-handling units, each
with a capacity of 0.5m3/s, provide
ventilation. These supply an underfloor
plenum with air distributed to the office
spaces via floor diffusers. If CO2 levels drop
too low, even when these units are running,
local windows will open automatically.
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
Sectional perspective of refurbished building.
Some areas, including the meeting
rooms, would not have been comfortable if
they had relied on natural ventilation alone.
Here, Daikin VRF heat-pump units are used
to provide heating and cooling. Where
partitioned offices or meeting rooms are
created, served by the VRF systems, fresh
air is obtained via small transfer fans
drawing air from the general open-plan
areas through the raised floors.
Chillers supply cooling to air-handling
units in critical areas such as the kitchens
and a 250-seat auditorium in the centre of
the development. There is a large data
centre, which requires cooling from three
water-cooled twin-circuit Carrier 30HXC
090 chillers in the basement plant room.
Depending on flow-rate and condenser and
chilled water temperatures, performance is
225-333kW each. Condenser water from the
chillers is cooled in summer by three roof-
mounted adiabatic dry air coolers, each
capable of rejecting 330kW of heat. When
heating to air-handling units is required,
condenser water is diverted as free energy.
Two in-room down-flow close control
Airedale air-handling units serve the UPS
room. Six similar units serve the data
centre, with provision for three more if the
data centre is expanded. Where possible,
considering temperature and humidity
criteria, free cooling from fresh air is used.
Heating to the office areas is provided
by low-level radiators, served from a central
boiler room at car park level below the west
wing. This is designed for flow and return
temperatures of 60C and 50C respectively
to maximise boiler efficiency. There are
three natural-gas-fired fanned-draught
condensing boilers, each of 600-650kW, by
Hoval. They also heat the hot water
calorifiers for the kitchens and, under
certain circumstances, provide heat to the
air-handling units. The auditorium and
Image by Flashforwardstudio
parts of the circulation area are heated by
underfloor pipework fed from the boilers.
As the east block is distant from the main
boiler plant, its hot water heating is by local
unvented Heatrae Sadia heaters.
The planners initially wanted 10% of
the building’s energy needs to be supplied
by renewables. “They asked how the
building could be sustainable without PV
panels or wind turbines,” says Lipscombe,
who had to explain it was far more cost-
effective to cut energy consumption than to
go for expensive bolt-ons.
There is no rainwater harvesting, for
example, because there is nowhere to put
storage tanks for the water. “Once they
understood that, they were happy,” he says.
There is provision to retrofit solar thermal
in the future, he adds.
Early indications are that the building
is performing as it should. “The anecdotal
evidence is that on days when it’s been
uncomfortably hot in other council
buildings it’s been very pleasant in here, 2-
3C cooler than outside,” Lipscombe says. He
adds that modelling showed emissions
could be reduced from 90kg/CO2/m2 per
year down the mid-30s. “We think we could
get that down to the mid 20s,” he says.
Carbon Trust monitoring will ultimately
prove whether his optimism is justified.
Either way, Elizabeth II Court has been
transformed into one of Britain’s most
energy-efficient office buildings. It looks
much better, too; the blank concrete facade
is broken up by the external ducts, which
are clad in locally sourced brick to help the
headquarters blend in with Winchester’s
red-brick terraces. The job is proof that
refurbishment can be low energy and look
decent too, which is a powerful message for
our new age.
For more on refurbishment, go to www.bsdlive.co.uk
26 PEOPLE

BSD INTERVIEW
JIM O’NEIL

Greener working practices make

good business sense, the chairman
of contractor focus group
M&E Sustainability tells BSD.
Portraits by Jason Harris
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09

“
Building owners are
actively seeking
expert advice and
support on energy
efficiency and our sector
must be in a position
to deliver
”
A
truly sustainable built
environment must make business
sense too, says Jim O’Neil,
chairman of M&E Sustainability,
the special interest group set up by the
Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA)
and the Heating and Ventilating
Contractors’ Association (HVCA).
O’Neil, who took up the post in spring
2008, has made it his mission to green the
m&e contracting sector by highlighting the
financial gains to be had. But the 51-year-old
former building services consultant is no
sandal-wearing environmentalist. As
technical services director at design,
installation and maintenance contractor
Shepherd Engineering Services, his outlook
is grounded in commercial reality: to
survive, m&e firms have to adapt to growing
demand from clients for sustainable
building projects.
His contention that contractors’ need
to make money should not conflict with the
need for environmental performance fits
well with M&E Sustainability’s origins. The
group was founded in 2007 by the two trade
associations to provide training and advice
after it became apparent that overseas
contractors were winning work in the UK on
projects with a high renewable energy
element because their local counterparts
lacked the skills to compete.
But having a workforce capable of
installing such technologies is only part of
the challenge: the task now is to make
money using this trained workforce. At first
many ECA and HVCA member firms
struggled to understand what sustainable
design really meant to them and their
customers. “It was hard, in the early days, to
see exactly how our members were going to
profit,” O’Neil explains.
Under his chairmanship the group has
become more focused. “If you try to do
everything, you can end up achieving
nothing. So, we’ve focused on a small
number of key areas that are central to
delivering the low carbon targets the
government keeps telling us it wants to
achieve, but that will also help m&e firms
find new business at an extremely tough
time,” says O’Neil.
He uses the example of construction
waste as a “perfect example” to illustrate
how a sustainable approach can help
increase a contractor’s bottom line.
“Not sending construction waste to
landfill is, obviously, a worthwhile
ecological activity, but it also makes sound
business sense, because winning an extra
£5000 of business at 5% profit margin will
only deliver a benefit to your bottom line of
just £250. And finding that new business in
the current economic environment is not
going to be easy, whereas shaving £250
from your costs by targeting material waste
is a realistic aim.” Accordingly, the group
has produced guidance on waste
management strategies.
Energy provides another opportunity.
O’Neil says the government should put far
more effort into reducing energy
consumption as a first step before
committing to building vast amounts of
expensive renewable energy sources.
“The government still seems to put far
too much faith in massive amounts of wind
power – at huge expense to the taxpayer
and future generations of electricity
consumers,” he says. Rather than
championing wind farms, M&E
Sustainability is promoting wider uptake
of microgeneration technologies such as
CHP, which its members are capable of
installing, and working with contractors to
ensure that such technologies are deployed
appropriately.
PEOPLE 27
“By increasing our use of
microgeneration to produce electricity
close to the point of use to recycle the
waste heat for use in our buildings, we can
make a huge difference to reducing energy,”
O’Neil says.
M&E Sustainability is delivering
specific guidance on energy efficiency,
renewable and microgeneration
technologies and is supporting training
courses designed to help contractors add
the new skills that will be needed as
demand for these technologies increases.
Legislation is another area where the
two associations are able to provide useful
guidance and support to their members via
M&E Sustainability. For example, 5000
organisations are expected to be included
in the CRC mandatory carbon trading
scheme when it starts in April. All of these
are potential clients of m&e firms as they
seek to reduce their carbon emissions,
primarily through energy efficiency and the
use of renewables, to reclaim money they
will be forced to spend on carbon credits.
POLE POSITION
This initiative marks a big step change
because it captures medium-size energy
users such as supermarkets, hotels, schools
and public bodies. It places a direct
financial incentive and penalty on carbon
emissions. “Currently confusion reigns, with
some clients being unaware of the
implications and of their potential actions,
but there is an opportunity now for m&e
contractors to inform their clients and put
themselves in pole position to provide
expertise,” says O’Neil.
Energy performance and display
energy certificates (EPCs and DECs) could
also provide a potential new work stream
for contractors. About 80,000 EPCs have
been issued for commercial buildings and
about 3000 are being produced every week
for homes. The key element for M&E
Sustainability is that the certificates are
accompanied by a report outlining energy
efficiency measures the building owner
could make to improve the rating. “Building
owners are actively seeking expert advice
and support and our sector must be in a
position to deliver,” says O’Neil.
The mechanical and electrical
contracting landscape is changing fast, and
in the next decade the skills contractors will
have to deploy will probably be
unrecognisable from the ones they use
today. There are huge opportunities for
those skilled in the design, installation and
maintenance of sustainable technologies. If
O’Neil is right, going green will make
sound business sense.
For more interviews, visit
www.bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
28 RENEWABLE ENERGY

SO LONG,
GLOBAL DEMAND FOR SOLAR PV
All figures in MW
2008 2009 2010 2011
Germany 1500 1700 1900 2100

SOLAR?
Spain 2661 500 500 550
Italy 338 553 1192 1283
France 105 150 259 464
Greece 15 50 100 220
Portugal 67 100 108 137
Japan 100 350 500 700
Korea 258 60 52 100
USA 342 450 820 1536

A chill wind has swept through

Australia 14 17 21 25
China 40 150 700 1000
India 54 117 199 368
Canada 7 110 158 206

the global photovoltaics Bulgaria

Czech Republic
Slovakia
1
54
0
20
110
11
40
120
21
80
180
42

industry, putting manufacturers Rest of central and eastern Europe

Rest of the world
Total
1
513
1
632
6069 5071
3
769
7471
5
911
9907*

in peril. Will the UK’s feed-in *All figures represent megawatts of PV capacity
Source: New Energy Finance, ‘conservative’ estimate

tariff help to save the day?

Mark Jansen investigates.

H
alf of the world’s solar
photovoltaic manufacturers will
be bankrupt within two years.
That’s the shocking prediction
of Jenny Chase, senior solar analyst at New
Energy Finance, a research group for
renewables investors and businesses.
Her claim seems bizarre. The world is
waking up to climate change and there is a
rush to develop clean energies as an
alternative to fossil fuels, so one would
expect the solar market to be booming.
What’s gone wrong? The short answer
is over-expansion followed by a slump in
demand. The global price of PV modules
has plummeted, which would be good news
for anyone thinking of installing solar on
their building if it weren’t for the fact that
most construction is on hold anyway
because of the recession. The long-term
outlook is that PV prices should continue to
fall, and recently there was further good
news for prospective PV installers: the UK
government has proposed a feed-in tariff for
PV and wind power, which means subsidies
for every kilowatt hour generated could be
on offer from next April.
In the short term, however, the global
picture is bleak for manufacturers.
According to Chase, the main cause of the
slump was the Spanish government’s
decision to cap its generous solar feed-in
tariff from 29 September 2008. Until then,
Spain had represented about half the world
market for solar PV.
Eager to take advantage of its sunny
climate and build a large solar industry, the
government had offered a subsidy of
45 cents for every kWh of solar electricity
generated, guaranteed for 25 years. This
was about equal to the feed-in tariff offered
by Germany since 2004, but Spain has a lot
more sun, a combination that made it
extremely attractive to the solar industry.
The incentive was a runaway success. The
Spanish government had wanted to
establish 500MW of solar generating
capacity by the end of 2008 but the target
was overshot massively and Spain has
ended up with 3GW of solar capacity,
mostly in the form of ground-mounted
generators. Alarmed by their escalating
liabilities, the authorities put a brake on the
tariff scheme. Existing commitments will be
honoured but the subsidies for additional
capacity have been severely restricted.
The curtailment of the Spanish
subsidy has meant that PV modules once
bound for Spain have flooded the world
market, prompting a slump in prices. “Until
29 September last year you would have
found it very difficult to buy PV modules
without ordering well in advance, and you
would pay well over US$4 per watt for
them,” says Chase. “This year, even if you
just want a small volume, the manufacturers
return your call straightaway and you’ll
probably end up paying something like
$2-$2.40 for them.” The price crash will be “comfortable” profits in the first quarter of
“incredibly painful” for solar manufacturers, 2009. Share prices for the sector, which
many of which are new entrants to the maintained their value at the onset of the
market, Chase says. credit crunch, plunged 50% after the
The extent of the oversupply is Spanish tariff was capped and have stayed
illustrated by the collapse in the price of low as the lack of bank finance has kept new
silicon, the essential component of PV projects on hold.
modules. In 2004 there were just four The huge gap that exists between
companies in the world making silicon. supply and demand is what makes Chase
Since then about 70 new firms have entered confident that at least 50% of solar PV
the market, encouraged by the German and makers will go out of business in the next
Spanish subsidies.The spot price for silicon two years. Factories will be mothballed and
peaked at $400 per kilogram in 2008, and is mergers will abound in what she believes is
now about $67. Chase believes the price a necessary consolidation. Many solar
could fall even further as the strongest companies raised large sums of money on
manufacturers are achieving production the stock markets during the good times,
costs of just $35/kg. which has strengthened their balance
Many PV companies have had to make sheets in the short term, but Chase says a
big writedowns in the value of their silicon wave of mergers and closures is inevitable.
stocks and Chase says very few made News of layoffs and short working is

BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09


common. In July the Toronto-based silicon
manufacturer Timminco announced up to
60 redundancies and the closure of six out
of seven production lines. In the same
month HelioGrid, a Hungarian subsidiary
of Switzerland’s EnergoDolar, closed its PV
production plant. The German company
Q-Cells, the world’s largest solar cell
manufacturer, cut working hours for 2,000
staff in April, and Switzerland’s Oerlikon
Solar announced 60 redundancies and cut
hours for 200 staff after reporting a 40%
decline in orders in the first quarter of 2009.
Despite these travails, Chase is
convinced that solar electricity generation
has a good long-term, with demand
increasing after the recession. She believes
that generators in the sunnier parts of
Europe, such as Italy and Spain, could even
achieve “grid parity” by 2015, meaning solar
RENEWABLE ENERGY 29
electricity costs the same as that generated
by fossil fuels, with no need for subsidies.
The UK’s cloudier skies means it is likely to
remain “a very minor market”.
That has not deterred the Westminster
government from announcing a feed-in
tariff for wind and solar electricity, effective
from April 2010, as part of its Low Carbon
Transition Plan. Public consultation on the
tariff closes on 28 October. The proposed
rate for domestic generators is 36p/kWh,
which is handsome considering that
domestic consumers pay 8-10p for
electricity generated using fossil fuel. The
tariff falls to 26p for larger solar
installations of up to 5MW and installers
such as Solarcentury are campaigning for
an increase. “We want the rate to be 10p
higher, which would give a return on
investment of 7-9%, whereas the 26p rate
would give a return of only 5%, which isn’t
high enough,” the company said.
Such figures are treated with
scepticism by those working in the built
environment. “PV is still expensive and the
payback periods still exceed the guaranteed
life of the products,” says Chris Twinn,
director of the sustainability group at Arup.
“I don’t think you’re ever going to get a
return; the issue is trying to make sure
you’re not losing too much.”
Daryl Pope, associate director at
Savills, says solar PV costs between £2500
and £4000 per kW to install, so the tariff will
make little difference: “We are not talking
about big bucks.”
Neither Twinn nor Pope has seen the
price of PV modules fall by anything like
the amount suggested by Chase. In any
case, argues Twinn, half the cost of PV lies
in the installation and the electronics
needed to feed power into the grid. “I’ve
seen no evidence so far that the prices for
all that are falling,” he adds.
Anthony Coumidis, director of M&E
design at McBains Cooper, agrees that PV
“
is unpopular with clients, but believes the
feed-in tariff could make a big difference:
‘The money the government is talking
PV is still expensive about is a substantial contribution. It will
affect people’s attitude – if you’re getting
and the payback falling costs and you’re getting a feed-in
tariff, all of a sudden, clients will pay for it.”
periods still exceed Twinn believes that the real driver of
the guaranteed life of solar PV expansion in the UK will be the
zero-carbon targets for new development.
the products. I don’t “The planning system and building
regulations will be ramped up to force
think you’re ever going developers to put more renewables on their
to get a return buildings as we get closer to 2016, and by
then there will be a significant demand for
”
PV,” he says. It could be be too little, too late
to save many of the world’s struggling solar
manufacturers.
More on renewables at bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
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3D VISUALISATION
MADE EASY
Some dismiss
Google’s SketchUp
as child’s play, but it
has avid fans among
design professionals,
reports Ruth Slavid.
Above: boiler plantroom drawn by
SketchUp enthusiast (and services
engineer) Olivier Boennec.
W
hen it launched in 2000,
SketchUp provided new
freedom for people who
wanted to think
imaginatively in three dimensions. Unlike
the more “serious” design programs, it did
not pin down the user to a degree of
accuracy that was inappropriate at the birth
of an idea. Dimensional accuracy and
calculation of properties are frustrating, not
enabling, when you are trying to be creative.
Google bought the company that
developed SketchUp in 2006, partly
because it had a plug-in that linked to
Google Earth, so a tool that had previously
been the province of aficionados was now
embraced across society. Architects loved it,
children loved it, autistic children in
particular loved it. And it was used to
design everything from kitchen layouts to
buildings to music videos.
DESIGN TOOLS 31
Google continued to refine SketchUp,
now on version 7, and has added to the
professional version (not free but very
affordable) a package called LayOut which
helps users to import models to slick
presentations.
None of this is surprising, given the
inherent appeal of SketchUp and the
marketing nous of Google. What is more
surprising is how many hardheaded
building services engineers have embraced
it. One of the most evangelistic is Olivier
Boennec at Aecom, who advises and
instructs his colleagues on the use of
SketchUp and other free software. “It is
intuitive and easy to use,” he says. “And
there are many plug-ins that work with it.”
Boennec discovered SketchUp by
chance in 2006. “I started teaching myself,
using it for problem solving. I got to grips
with it very quickly; it fitted with the way ¢
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
32 DESIGN TOOLS
Olivier Boennec of Aecom uses SketchUp at the early stages of a project to research ideas. Clockwise from top: his
drawings of chilled beam action, chiller replacement, and an open loop confined aquifer.
¢ that my brain works. There was an
explosion of creativity.”
Boennec uses SketchUp at the early
stages of projects to research ideas.
“Although I am a building services
engineer, I sometimes want to show the
structure.” He likes the fact that it is easy to
create something once, such as a column,
and then “teleport” it to new positions. This
activity, known as component cloning, is far
less instinctive with more sophisticated
CAD systems. “Regular users of Micro-
Station don’t know how to do it,” Boennec
says. He can also calculate floor areas in
SketchUp and break down floorplates.
He is just as enthusiastic about
SketchUp as a presentation tool, when he
uses it in association with two open source
packages: Inkscape for graphics and GIMP
for photographic retouching. With these he
does anything from presenting project
BSD OCT
OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
sketches to creating graphic presentations
of a project’s progress as a series of gears.
The results are so impressive that “we have
won jobs as a result of our use of the
software”, Boennec says.
Boennec has written a design guide,
which is posted on Aecom’s intranet, and
has conducted training for his own and
other offices through video and web
conferencing.
SketchUp is valuable to acoustic
engineers. Paul Driscoll, a senior consultant
at BDP, says: “We can build an acoustic
model in about half an hour that would have
taken half a day in AutoCAD.” The
attraction for acousticians, he adds, is “we
don’t need everything to be millimetre
accurate”, so the approximate nature of
SketchUp is not a problem. He then marks
up his drawings using Acrobat and Adobe
Illustrator.
Another great advantage is the ability
to link to Google Earth, which BDP uses to
produce noise maps. “It shows us lots of
things you wouldn’t see on an Ordnance
Survey map,” Driscoll says.
Lighting designers, who sit between
architecture and engineering, also put
SketchUp to good use. Kevin Grant, who
runs Buro Happold’s lighting division in
Edinburgh, says he often receives drawings
in it from architects seeking input from the
lighting team at an early stage.
Grant says his practice uses SketchUp
to illustrate ideas, “but we also use it for
analysis and calculation. We can build
models very quickly for analysis of, for
instance, daylighting. Then we can import it
into Radiance [the lighting analysis and
rendering package]. It’s very useful for
making decisions on issues such as
daylighting versus artificial lighting.”
It’s also good, says Grant, when
working with architects who are designing
buildings with complex forms. “Calculation
programs are for calculation,” he says. “We
need to show what the buildings look like.
We can accurately reproduce the shapes
and the forms in SketchUp.”
Grant’s team comes from a range of
disciplines. His own background is
electrical engineering, and there are also
architects in the mix. “SketchUp lets people
from all different backgrounds develop and
share models,” he says. The only people
who may find SketchUp difficult, Grant
adds, are those highly proficient in CAD. In
contrast, he says, “I used it to design my
kitchen. After one session of a few hours, I
was able to put together a model.”
SketchUp is seductive because it is
easy to use, but search the web and it’s not
hard to find people complaining about the
program. The criticism is two-fold: all too
often the intricate work in SketchUp has to
be redone in a “proper” program; and
designs in SketchUp are not real, and may
bear only a resemblance to what is built.
Chris Twinn, director of the building
engineering sustainability group at Arup,
has resisted the lure. “The problem,” he
says, “is that you then have to dump it all
because you want to get numbers out of it.
The emphasis for us is for tools that can
give us more shelf life.” Arup is committed
to doing all its work in 3D and, wherever
possible to building integrated models that
enable all the design team to contribute and
share information. So the practice has
deliberately decided to eschew SketchUp.
Nevertheless, Twinn admits, “There
are guys in the office who will play with
SketchUp – but you then have to move on to
the next phase.” It seems that a SketchUp
habit, once acquired, is hard to kick.
For more on IT, www.bsdlive.co.uk
34 FIRE REGULATIONS
WHEN ONE’S
ENOUGH
Germany’s regulatory approach
to single-stair high-rise buildings
makes good sense, say Karl Wallasch
and Boris Stock
S
ingle stairway buildings are a
growing trend in high-rise
developments. Such buildings have
always presented unique challenges
for designers and regulatory authorities,
and have generally been tightly controlled
by legislation and statutory guidance
documents.
Single stair buildings are allowed in
England and Wales and in Germany. This
article compares the two sets of regulations.
It aims to offer engineers and architects a
better understanding of the problems faced
in single staircase design as well as the
potential solutions.
High-rise buildings are often assumed
to be landmarks, such as the Burj Dubai in
Dubai (818m) or the Sears Tower in Chicago
(527m), but in England and Wales any
building with a height (measured from the
fire service access level to the top floor
level) of more than 30m is classified as
high-rise while in Germany any building
over 22m is considered high-rise. The table
on the facing page summarises the key
differences between the fire regulations in
England and Germany.
COMPARISON
In both sets of regulations, buildings are
classified depending on their height. In
Germany a single stair could be provided
within any office or residential building up
to a height of 60m, whereas in England and
Wales height and use determine whether a
single stair is permitted.
In England and Wales residential high-
rise buildings can be designed with single
stairway provision of any height without
pressurization in the stair core. In Germany
a single stairway is not permitted for a
residential building with a height of more
than 60m.
In England and Wales, it is not code-
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
Figure 4: Floor layout study for an office
building development in Germany by Eric
Parry Architects, London
compliant to provide an office building with
a single stair core with a height greater than
11m, whereas in Germany a single
pressurized stair office building is code-
compliant if its height is not more than
60m.
Figure 4 (below left) shows a typical
floor layout plan for an office development
in Germany. The building has a height of
58m and is provided with a single stair core.
Such a design would not be possible in
England and Wales. However, in Germany,
enhanced compartmentation and
provisions for stopping fire spread from
floor to floor, as well as pressurizing the
single stair core, have been seen as
compensation features that allow the
omission of a second stair core.
The regulations have many similarities
and it is perhaps the differences, for
example the maximum height for single
stair office buildings, that provide the
greatest food for thought.
Given that fire death statistics in
Germany and the UK are similar, it would
be ideal if the fire protection advice
regarding single stairs could be
standardised across the European Union.
Fire statistics in England and Germany
indicate that the death rate in offices is very
low (nearly 0%). Given that occupants are
generally awake and familiar with their
surroundings, and that a high level of
passive and active fire precautions are
implemented in a typical office building, it
may be time to consider if regulation in
England and Wales should change so single
stair office buildings could be permitted for
buildings up to a height of 30m.
Karl Wallasch is senior fire engineer with Hoare Lea
Fire, London (UK)
Boris Stock is senior fire engineer with BFT Cognos
GmbH, Aachen (Germany)

SINGLE STAIR BUILDINGS: COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLAND AND GERMANY
any height ■ < 5m height class 1
■ 5m < 18m, height class 2
90 ■ 18m < 30m, height class 3
■ > 30m, height class 4
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 0
Figure 1: Height classifications –
England and Wales.
ENGLAND AND WALES
In England and Wales single stair
provision depends on the use and
height of the building, in Germany
it is dependent on height alone.
Offices
Use of a single staircase for an
office building is severely
restricted. A single stair can be
provided only under the following
circumstances:
■ The building has no storey with
a floor level more than 11m above
the ground floor.
■ The travel distance in a single
direction is within 18m.
■ The occupancy on any single
floor level does not exceed 60
persons.
This restricts the maximum
height of an office with a single
stair to 11m. High-rise single
staircase office buildings are
therefore not usually acceptable.
While either simultaneous or
phased evacuation could be
provided for the single staircase
office, due to the restriction on
building height, the single
staircase office is usually
simultaneously evacuated.
Residential
Following the guidance in
Approved Document B (2006),
there is no restriction in height for
a residential building. A remain-in-
place evacuation strategy is
preferred over simultaneous
evacuation. This minimises distress
or disruption to other residents in
the event of a false alarm or small
localised incident. This strategy
requires only the apartment of fire
origin to evacuate in the initial
stages of a serious fire.
To ensure the safety of
occupants, the following provisions
are recommended under the
Building Regulations:
■ Ventilation of the communal
corridor with single staircase
provision. For any residential
building with a floor level greater
than 4.5m from ground floor
level, a smoke control system is
required in the common corridor
serving the apartments. The
smoke control system is not to
protect the corridor but to
ensure smoke does not enter
the staircase and so affect fire
service access and impact on the
means of escape of the occupants
from the upper floor levels. Either
natural or mechanical ventilation
could be used.
■ Fire Service access. For a
residential building over a height
of 18m, a fire-fighting stair is
required. This needs to be
upgraded to become a fire-fighting
shaft, which requires additional
fire rating, fire-fighting lift, fire-
fighting corridor and dry riser
provision.
■ Compartmentation. Each
apartment must be separated from
the adjoining apartments as well
as the central (ventilated) corridor
by a minimum of 60 minutes
compartmentation, regardless of
height. This is based on the
assumption that a typical
residential fire will not take more
than 60 minutes.
■ Active fire suppression. Since
April 2007 any new-build
residential development with a
height greater than 30m requires
residential sprinkler provision.
These systems are provided solely
to the apartments – it is not
necessary to protect communal
areas with sprinklers.
any height
■ < 7m height class 1
■ 7m < 22m, height class 2
90 ■ 22m < 60m, height class 3
■ > 60m, height class 4
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Figure 2: Height classifications –
Germany.
REGULATIONS – GERMANY
In Germany, buildings with a
height greater than 22m are
classified as high-rise. This is,
however, divided into two groups
that reflect the different risks
presented. These are:
■ Group 1 – buildings greater than
22m but less than 60m.
■ Group 2 – buildings greater than
60m.
In Germany, only height criteria
are used to determine if a single
stair option is acceptable, whereas
in England and Wales single stair
provision depends on both the use
and height of the building.
In Germany, any residential or
office building with a height
greater than 60m must be provided
with at least two stair cores and a
sprinkler system. Only high-rise
buildings with a height up to 60m
can be provided with a single stair
and no sprinkler system or
automatic detection system is
required if the following apply:
■ At each level compartment
zones are provided with an area of
not more than 200m².
■ Compartment walls/floors have
a fire rating of 90 minutes.
■ 1m vertical or horizontal fire
barrier element (ie 90 minutes’ fire
resistance) at external facade to
prevent fire spread from floor to
floor.
■ Safety-stair core (for example a
pressurized stair core and
protected lobby).
■ Travel distance in single
direction within a protected
corridor should be no greater than
15m.
■ Automatic activation of
pressurisation system in the single
FIRE REGULATIONS 35
Figure 3: Layout of a typical single stair
core (pressurized) in a residential tower by
Petzinka Pink Architekten, Düsseldorf
(Germany).
stair core (see also Figure 3 above,
outlining a typical pressurized
single stair core for a high rise
building up to 60m).
■ Automatic detection provided in
each compartment zone.
Interestingly, the designs of the
exit and stair sizes for a high-rise
office or residential building in
Germany are not based on the
number of occupants per floor and
either simultaneous or phased
evacuation. Instead they are based
on the following general
assumptions:
■ exit width from compartment
zones of 0.9m;
■ corridor width of 1.2m; and
■ stair width of 1.2m.
The minimum clear widths given
above apply regardless of the
height of the building, the number
of floors or the occupant load. This
contrasts with England and Wales
where the minimum exit width is
calculated based on the following
provisions (see also BS 9999):
■ type of building (ie risk profile
category);
■ number of floors;
■ number of occupants;
■ level of detection;
■ sprinkler provision; and/or
■ clear floor height.
Generally a phased evacuation or
simultaneous evacuation strategy
is in place for office and residential
buildings. Fire service authorities
in Germany would normally
evacuate adjacent occupants
within a residential tower or
evacuate the whole building
depending on the fire-fighting
process.
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
 Early
bird r
ar ates
until e available
Fri
regist day 2 Octo
er no
w and ber -
£100
on fu save
rate p ll
rices

Changing the way we design and deliver infrastructure Speakers include:

Infrastructure is one of the great challenges of our age, with governments across the
developed and developing worlds investing trillions of dollars to equip their power, transport,
water, waste and communications networks for the demands of the 21st century.

We also need more resource and energy efficient infrastructure to enable the transition to a Nicholas Bliss, Keith Clarke, Spence Clunie,
low carbon economy, which governments now recognise as a critical priority, in response to co-head, global infrastructure chief executive, Atkins on senior managing director
peak oil, climate change and population growth. & transport, Freshfields carbon critical design Macquarie Capital Advisors
Bruckhaus Deringer

The inaugural Global Infrastructure Forum, which takes place in London on 5-6 November,
aims to accelerate delivery of this new infrastructure for the carbon-conscious age by
bringing together the key international players – including policy makers & regulators,
funders & their advisors, constructors, owners & operators.

Join more than 350 top level international infrastructure professionals over two Marta Gajecka, Stephen Joseph, Roger Madelin
vice president, European executive director, Campaign chief executive,
days to network and discuss the key issues in designing and delivering key global Investment Bank for Better Transport Argent
infrastructure projects.

Book now at
globalinfrastructureforum.com Matthias Ruete, Andrew Stevenson, Ian Wootton,
director-general for partner, partner,
Energy & Transport, European Davis Langdon PricewaterhouseCoopers
Commission

Platinum partner Gold partners

Organised by In partnership with Media partners

 OTHING

W
ALLY N

E
IT’S RE

N BUT VISIBLY SECURE

The new generation of metal pressfittings

with press indicator and cap.
Thanks to its press indicator, the new Mapress fitting offers a higher level of
security. In addition to the contour seal ring in every fitting, it is now possible to
check for unpressed joints even before performing a pressure test. In addition, all
of the pressfitting ends come equipped with a cap, so the seal ring remains
protected right up to the time of installation, shielding it from contamination with
dirt and dust. That’s what we mean by Know-How Installed.
www.geberit.co.uk
38 TECHNICAL
AIR MOVEMENT
WON BY A NOSE
Air-handling became an art form in
New York this summer, with the
premiere of an opera in which scent
was the star. Andy Pearson reports.
T
he highlight of this summer’s New
York cultural calendar was the
premier of a new opera. But this
was no ordinary musical drama;
for a start it was performed in a darkened
room in the Guggenheim Museum, rather
than under spotlights at the Metropolitan
Opera House. Stranger still, the success of
each performance depended on an
innovative building services design. But the
really odd thing about this show was that it
TECHNICAL
had no cast. The characters in the pre-
recorded piece were represented by
individual scents; this was an opera
designed to be smelled rather than watched.
Green Aria: a ScentOpera was the idea
of former financier Stewart Matthew, whose
libretto was set to smell by Mohican-haired
French fragrance designer and top “nose”
Christophe Laudamiel. The plot is about
technology joining forces with nature, but
there is no spoken or sung script.
Laudamiel spent many months
crafting an individual scent for each of the
35 “characters”, which are introduced to the
audience at the start of the performance.
They include Magma, which smelled like
hot tar, Absolute Zero, Meretricious Green,
and Shiny Steel. Laudamiel’s scents were
accompanied by Nico Muhly and Valgeir
Sigurdsson’s musical score.
The most difficult task, however, was
not creating the scents but coming up with
a way to get them to the audience in time to
the music.
For the olfactory experience to succeed
the entire audience had to receive the same
scent at the same time at the same intensity.
Achieving this was not easy because smells
have a longer resonance in the nose than
sounds do in the ear. What’s more, it was
essential that the smells did not merge with
each other to form an amorphous fug.
To find a solution, Matthew and
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
Laudamiel turned to air movement
specialist Fläkt Woods.
Ian Watts, the firm’s business
development manager, was the man tasked
with meeting this curious brief. “It did
sound a bit off the wall,” he recalls. The idea
of adding a fragrance to a room is not new –
firms have been known to waft the scent of
pine through the air-conditioning to
energise their staff and some supermarkets
blast the odour of freshly baked bread
through the ventilation ductwork to
increase sales.
Watts’ challenge, however, was much
more complicated than just filling a room
with one smell. He says introducing scent
through the ductwork is fine for large
spaces, but his brief called for short bursts
of a succession of scents, each distinct from
its predecessor.
The solution took 18 months to
develop. Rather than using ductwork, the
scents are delivered to the audience
through what Watts calls “scent
microphones”. These are small, goose-
necked, semi-rigid tubes attached to each
chair, which are adjustable to enable scents
to be released close to the occupant’s nose.
The designers experimented with various
air velocities before settling on 0.2m/s. “We
wanted each scent to emerge as a soft
breeze with a minimum of turbulence so
that people knew where the scent had come
from,” explains Watts. “This speed was
found to be the most comfortable.”
With the method of delivery sorted, the
next task was to find a way of getting the
scents to the microphones. Laudamiel
wanted something capable of delivering a
total of 35 different scents to each member
of the audience in bursts lasting no longer
than six seconds.
Unsurprisingly there were nothing
suitable on the market, so Fläkt Woods ¢
 39

Fläkt Woods’ scent organ

was the star at New York’s
Guggenheim (inset).

ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009

40 TECHNICAL

Scent “microphones”
are positioned to
deliver the individual
odours under the
nose of each
member of the
audience.

¢ developed a device that Watts calls a
scent organ. This is a freestanding unit that
uses a combination of compressed air and
concentrated perfumes to deliver up to 35
scents to 25 “microphones”. (Six scent
organs were used for the New York
performances.) The scents are contained in
specially manufactured cylinders, designed
to prevent any cross-contamination
between scents, which slot into individual
housings in the scent organ.
“We used dry scents rather than wet
scents,” Watts explains. Dry scents are
based on crystals (rather than scent oils in
an alcohol solution) because the smell from
“
the scents reach the nose of every audience
member at exactly the same time.
A further slug of (unscented)
We wanted each scent compressed air is then injected into the
manifold to push the fragrant air down the
to emerge from tube to the microphones and the waiting
noses. This additional air has the benefit of
the microphones as a soft purging the manifold and its connecting
breeze with a minimum tubes of any residual scent.
The system was tested in the Fläkt
of turbulence, so that Woods’ Colchester boardroom, which was
commandeered by Watts and the team for
people knew where it the occasion. It worked; the scents were
had come from delivered in time to the opera’s pre-recorded
sound track.

crystals evaporates more quickly than that
contained in liquids or oils – thus allowing
one scent to be replaced rapidly by another.
The crystals are mixed with oil, forming a
white slurry, which is then placed into its
own cylinder.
Each scent is delivered through a
complex system of manifolds and valves.
Compressed air (at 150psi) is supplied to
the scent organ via a pressure-regulating
valve before passing into a distribution
manifold which splits the air evenly
between a further four manifolds. Each of
these manifolds has 10 air outlets, each
individually controlled by an electro-
pneumatic valve, which opens to allow
compressed air to enter a scent cartridge
and bubble through the slurry, picking up
the scent. The valves are controlled by a
”
building management system of the type
more often used to flash the lights on a
nightclub dance floor.
To control the intensity of the smell,
the organ includes flow regulators and
bleed-valves. The scented air then enters an
exit manifold where it is divided equally
between the 25 individual scent microphone
feeds. The microphones are connected to
the manifold by tubes made of a special
type of plastic, impermeable to odour. Each
tube is exactly the same length to ensure
But the real test came at New York’s
Guggenheim Museum. To cater for an
audience of 148, Fläkt Woods had to
position six scent organs strategically
around the auditorium, fed from a ring-main
of compressed air. “We’d done a lot of
testing at Fläkt Woods’ factory but we did
give ourselves a few hours’ safety margin,”
Watts admits.
The opera was a critical success. The
scents told the story of a struggle between
nature and industry in four movements,
which the programme described as:
“Technology joins forces with Nature;
Evangelical Green preaches the gospel of
modernism, forging a manmade world
where scents sound, touch and pour.”
Pretentious? Perhaps, or maybe you have to
smell it to make sense of it.

HERE COMES
SMELL-O-VISION
Following the success of the scent
opera, Fläkt Woods has continued
its relationship with Laudamiel and
Matthew through the pair’s
fragrance media company
Aeosphere. Projects under way
include work for cinema operators
who want to add smell to the
movie-going experience.
“Major retailers are
recognising scent design as an
increasingly important part of the
consumer experience,” Watts says.
“Hospitals in the US have
recognised the ability of scent to
help calm patients and shorten
recovery time and some hotel
chains are starting to use scent to
improve the ambience of their
public spaces, raising their
customer’s perception of quality.
“The scent organ marks the
first in a series of technical
innovations designed to add the
use of scent to our array of air
climate solutions.”

BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09


Annual Conference | Sustainability Awards
24th November 2009
King’s Place, London
CONFERENCE
PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED
THE CONFERENCE WILL BE FOLLOWED BY THE SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS RECEPTION UNTIL 8PM.
INVITATIONFROMPAULKING
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, UK-GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL
Sustainability has become a
mainstream issue for the UK property and
construction industry over the last few years. So
surely we’re making good progress, on the right
track? Well I’m afraid the harsh reality is that the
hard work has barely begun.
As a global industry we’re culpable for nearly
half of the climate change problem, or half of the
solution, depending on your point of view.
That’s a huge responsibility, and a
great opportunity, if you prefer your
glass half full.
Later this year, the UK Green Building
Council will be holding its first conference, in
association with Building magazine and we’ll
be asking how we can change all that. How as
an industry we can begin to set the agenda,
to take responsibility, and realise the scale of
the opportunity. How can we, in fact, make
sustainable development happen?
I hope to see you on the 24th November.
BOOK NOW AT
BUILDING.CO.UK/UKGBC
2 0 0 9
UK-GBC CONFERENCE AGENDA
24 NOVEMBER 2009, KINGS PLACE, LONDON
08:30 - 09:30 Arrival
09:30 – 09:35 Welcome
09:35 – 9:50 Scale of the challenge
Are you sitting comfortably? We’re all familiar
with the headline targets, but just how big is the
task ahead? Are the NGOs right that we’ve really
got less than 100 months to save the planet?
Just how radical a change do we need to see?
9.50 – 10.20 You need to know
A snapshot of the policy landscape and key
legislation affecting our sector. Some levelling
up of understanding – factual, impartial
information from
chief government advisors.
10:20 – 11:10 Sustainable built environment -
from vision to reality
UK-GBC led debate on how we radically transform
our sector. What does the roadmap look like?
The role of industry, the role for
Government and the importance of an agreed,
common framework; posing a challenge to the
industry and inviting the politicians to respond.
11:10 – 11:45 Coffee Break
11:45 – 13:00 Leading from the front
A special guest provides an introduction to the
theme of leadership, achieving remarkable
things and driving change.
How do we show leadership in our sector?
How do we mainstream change?
Can we learn anything from experiences outside
of our sector?
13:00 – 14.00 Lunch
Organised by:
Partnered with:
Sponsored by:
14:00 – 14.30 Making a profit from green
Positive, pro-active, inspiring – you can go green AND
make money.
14:30 – 15:30 The Hot Seat; from vicious circle of
blame to virtuous circle –session 1
What are the key barriers and obstacles preventing
every sector of the industry from bringing forward
more radical change?
How can we overcome them, particularly in a
recession and that addresses costs in a realistic way?
15:30 – 16:05 Coffee Break
16:05 – 16:45 Hot Seat – session 2
16:45 – 16:55 The Way Forward
17:00 Conference ends
17:30 Sustainable Awards reception
SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
PAUL KING, chief executive officer UK Green
Building Council
JOHN SAUVEN, UK executive director
Greenpeace
DAVID KENNEDY, chief executive officer
Climate Change Committee
GRANT SHAPPS, MP shadow housing
minister Conservatives
DAME ELLEN MACARTHUR
DAN LABBAD, chief executive officer
Europe, Middle East And Africa, Lend Lease
SUNAND PRASAD, immediate past
president Riba
JOE VAN BELLEGHAM, Dockside Green
42 TECHNICAL
DESIGN PRIMER
PART 5
SOLAR
SHADING
In this regular series
of articles Professor
Doug King explains
the principles of
environmental
building design. This
month he considers
how to use solar
shading without
sacrificing daylight.
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
N
ew buildings almost always
require some form of shading to
control heat gains from the sun.
We recognise that good daylight
in buildings is a benefit and so we provide
large areas of glazing to give adequate light
levels on overcast winter days, but this then
leads to too much sunshine falling through
the windows in summer.
Overheating has become particularly
problematic with the fashion for glass
facades and in the development of deep-
plan buildings without adequate attention
to balanced daylight design. With increased
levels of insulation and air tightness
required by Building Regulations, there is
much less chance for excess heat to escape
than in old uninsulated buildings, and the
predominance of lightweight internal
finishes limits the heat that can be
absorbed into the structure, so the building
overheats. The conventional response is to
resort to air-conditioning.
On a clear day the energy from the
sunshine falling on the vertical face of a
building can be as much as 700W/m2. This
energy is largely infra-red and is easily
transmitted through glass, creating the
potential to passively heat buildings but
also to overheat them. To minimise the
artificial energy required to keep buildings
comfortable throughout the year we need
to develop strategies for shading that
admit this solar gain when it is beneficial
in the winter, exclude it when it would
otherwise lead to overheating and still allow
sufficient daylight.
There are plenty of computer
programs that allow us to design shading
systems, but as a very simple guide we can
consider that the Building Regulations Part
L suggests that reasonable provision to
FIGURE 1
We have seen that the average daylight factor in a room
depends on the visible sky angle at the centre of the window.
Introducing shades above the window to block direct
sunshine also reduces the sky angle dramatically, particularly
in urban locations where the horizon line is elevated.
avoid overheating would be to limit
combined solar and internal gains to less
than 35W/m2 averaged over the period of
occupancy in July. This equates to
350Wh/m2 per day for 10-hour occupancy.
For a typical passively designed office we
need to allow about 20W/m2 heat gain for
people and office equipment (we assume
that if we need solar shading that there is
enough daylight to avoid electric lighting),
equating to 200Wh/m2 per day leaving
150Wh/m2 for solar gains.
If we now assume that the depth of the
daylit zone is twice the floor-to-floor height,
then 150Wh/m2 of floor area equates to
300Wh/m2 per day allowable solar gain
transmission through the facade. The total
solar energy falling on a south-facing
facade during the 10-hour occupied day in
July is about 3800Wh/m2. So if 50% of the
facade is glazed to achieve good daylight,
this means in general we should be aiming
to achieve a solar gain factor for the glazing
in the region of 0.15.
This is by no means the whole story,
but it does indicate the likely levels of
shading that will be required for
commercial buildings. (NB: the solar gain
factor refers to the total heat transmission
through the windows, while the “shading
co-efficient” quoted by many glazing
manufacturers relates to the performance of
their product relative to clear single glazing
which has a solar gain factor of 0.86).
Clearly the best form of shading is to
prevent the solar energy passing through
the window in the first place. This is
generally achieved by providing a louvred
sun screen or brise-soleil as part of the
facade treatment or increasingly as
individual projecting shades directly over
windows. Brise-soleil was first used for an
FIGURE 2
The Good
The BRE Environmental Office uses rotating louvres on
the south elevation to continuously balance daylight and
heat gain.

office building in Algiers, designed by Le
Corbusier in 1933. Since then solar shading
has become an icon of green architecture,
often used to signal a building’s sustainable
intentions in the same way as roof-mounted
wind turbines. However, like many iconic
features, it is often applied without
understanding. Lacking proper engineering
design, brise-soleil can often cause more
problems than it solves, particularly when it
comes to achieving the right balance
between daylight and heat gains.
Fortunately the path of the sun
through the sky is predictable throughout
the year, so it is a matter of simple
geometry to design a system that will block
a large proportion of the solar gains during
periods when the building is at risk of
overheating and still allow passive solar
design in the winter. However, it becomes
more difficult if the aim is also to achieve
sufficient daylight, as the simple expedient
of projecting a shade from the top of the
window to the required shading line also
blocks most of the available daylight,
particularly in urban areas where the
horizon is high, as indicated in Figure 1.
Shading systems therefore have to be
designed specifically for each orientation
of facade and for the various needs of
building occupancy. There really is no “one
size fits all” solution. An alternative
approach is to make the shading louvres
move in response to the position of the sun
and the building’s need for heat and light.
However this is an expensive solution and
can lead to failure of the whole lighting and
overheating strategy if any of the control
components fail or the original design
intent is lost over time through changes in
management or ownership.
Other means of shading include
FIGURE 3
The Bad
The use of architectural shades at the British Library, even
on the north elevation, blocks out almost all of the
available daylight.
TABLE 1
TYPICAL SOLAR GAIN FACTORS FOR VARIOUS SHADING DEVICES
Heat absorbing glass
Clear solar control glass
Internal cotton roller blind
Internal Venetian blind
External canvas roller blind
External louvre or shade
external and internal blinds or blinds in the
cavity between layers of glazing, solar
reflective treatments to the glass or special
glazing assemblies designed to transmit
light but block direct solar gain.
External blinds can create problems as
they have to be engineered to resist wind
pressures, can be difficult to access for
maintenance, and appear to make ideal
homes for pigeons. Internal blinds can be
simply controlled by the occupants,
allowing them to respond to glare from
low-angled sunshine; but in thermally
massive buildings, by the time the users
feel too hot and close the blinds, it is
generally too late and so some form of
automatic control is desirable. Roller blinds
can be provided with varying density of
weave to allow control of both daylight and
solar gains, while Venetian blinds can be
angled to act as daylight reflectors while
blocking solar gains.
There is a wide range of solar control
glazing on the market, much of it relying on
coloured tints in the glass to absorb the
heat from the sun, but of course the more
heavily tinted the more daylight it blocks
out. A number of glazing systems use clear
FIGURE 4
The Ugly
Faux brise-soleil on the new Bath Bus Station has minimal
effect on heat gains.
TECHNICAL 43
0.25-0.4
0.3-0.5
0.3-0.4
0.4-0.5
0.1-0.15
0.1-0.15
glass with microscopically thin layers of
metal bonded to the surface, resulting in
selective transmission and reflection,
similar to low-E treatment.
Some of the best systems can achieve
a solar gain factor of about 0.27-0.35 while
maintaining a visible light transmission
factor of 0.6-0.7 and a clear appearance.
More exotic solar control glazing systems
incorporate micro-prisms or micro-tubes to
guide diffuse daylight into the building but
reflect back light incident at certain angles
corresponding to the position of the sun in
the sky.
Appropriate control of solar gains can
make a substantial difference to a building’s
energy consumption, particularly if it
means the difference between air-
conditioning and natural ventilation. With
such a wide range of options for solar
control, which can be combined in many
ways, designers have great flexibility to
achieve a high performance building and
meet the architectural aesthetic.
Doug King is visiting professor of building
engineering physics at the University of Bath and
founder of consulting engineer King Shaw Associates
FIGURE 4
When solar shading is not designed as part of the
architecture it is almost inevitable that the occupants will
take matters into their own hands, often spoiling the
architectural concept.
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009

CPDPLASTIC
PIPES
Welcome to the seventh in our
regular series of CPD modules,
designed to help you broaden your
knowledge while you work. This
module is sponsored by Durapipe.
Building Sustainable Design’s free continuing
professional development distance learning
programme is open to everyone who wants to
develop and improve their professional
knowledge and skills. These modules can
contribute to your annual programme of CPD
activity to help you maintain membership of
professional institutions and bodies.
All you have to do is read this module and then
answer the multiple-choice questions on the
final page; complete your personal details and
fax the answers to +44 (0)20 7560 4014 or
scan the answer page and email it to
bsd-cpd@ubm.com. Alternatively, for a quicker,
greener way of completing this module go to
www.bsdlive.co.uk/cpd
T
he plastic industry has come a long
way since the second half of the
19th century when it first
developed cellulose nitrate as a
replacement for ivory in billiard balls. This
article reviews the use of plastic pipes as an
integral part of services installations, with
an overview of the materials and techniques.
THE CHEMISTRY OF POLYMERS
“Plastic pipes” is a very ample and general
term, similar to describing the alternative as
“metal pipes”. In fact, the characteristics
and properties of plastic pipes can be quite
varied and depend largely on the organic
structure of their base polymer(s) as well as
the additives used in their manufacture.
Polymers are the combination of many
monomers – smaller molecules – into
chains. The properties of a polymer are
dependent on both the monomers
contained and the way they are linked.
Plastics can be classified as either
thermoset or thermoplastic polymers.
Thermoset polymers are plastic resins
that cure by chemical reaction when heated
and, once cured, cannot be resoftened by
heating. Their greatest advantage is that,
because of their low viscosity, fibre
impregnation can be carried out at low
pressure and therefore they are very
suitable for use in composites materials
(over 90% of the polymers currently being
used in composites are thermoset).
Thermoplastic polymers are plastics
capable of being repeatedly softened by
increases in temperature and hardened by
decreases. They are tougher and less friable
than thermosets, but are more expensive to
process as this must be done at a much
higher pressure. Thermoplastics are much
more readily recyclable than thermosets, an
increasingly important factor in today’s
environmentally conscious climate. This
TECHNICAL 45
article deals mainly with thermoplastics as
they are the base polymers on most
unreinforced plastic pipes.
According to their molecular structure,
thermoplastics can be either amorphous,
when their chains are tangled in no
particular pattern, or crystalline, when their
chains are lined up in ordered crystals.
Amorphous and crystalline polymers
react differently to temperature changes.
When amorphous polymers are cooled
below a certain temperature, called the
glass transition temperature (Tg), they
become hard and brittle; this phenomenon
is called glass transition. At temperatures
under Tg the polymer chains are arranged
in a random manner similar to that in glass,
but as the temperature increases the
polymer chains acquire sufficient energy to
rotate. At temperatures between the Tg and
the melting temperature (Tm) the material
enters a “rubbery phase” in which it can
suffer large elongations under relatively
light loads. Chewing gum is a good
example of this process: it is hard and rigid
at low temperatures, but becomes pliable
and soft at body temperature.
Crystalline polymers, on the other
hand, do not go through the glass transition
process, but as most plastics are a
combination of amorphous and crystalline
polymers they will have both a Tg and Tm
(where the crystalline arrangement breaks
down). Hard plastics are generally used at
temperatures lower than their Tg whereas
elastomeric ones (those that can expand
and contract without rupture) are used at
temperatures higher than their Tg when
they are soft and flexible.
MATERIALS USED FOR PLASTIC PIPES
Most plastic pipes and their fittings consist
of base polymers and additives used to
improve certain characteristics of the base
product. There is a great variety of additives,
and some of their main categories include:
■ antioxidants, to inhibit or retard oxygen-
or peroxide-promoted reactions, thus
increasing the usable temperature range
and life of the product;
■ antistatic, allowing pipes to carry highly
flammable materials in ungrounded pipes
as sparks are not produced;
■ colourants;
■ modifiers, to change some properties, for
example, impact resistance;
■ coupling agents to improve bonding;
■ fibrous and non-fibrous reinforcements;
■ flame retardants, which are used
specifically when the base polymer
supports combustion (ABS or
polypropylene, for example). Smoke
suppressants can also be used to reduce
smoke production during combustion;
■ heat stabilisers, to prevent heat or light
induced degradation. Ultraviolet ¢
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
46 TECHNICAL

TABLE 1
Material Characteristics/use Operating temperature range Jointing

ABS (acrylonitrile Amorphous. Industrial applications -40°C/70°C Solvent welding

butadiene-styrene) requiring high impact strength and rigidity.
Suitable for potable water and chilled
water applications
PB (polybutylene) Crystalline. Flexible and strong at high -5°C/95°C Mechanical couplings/
temperatures; suitable for hot and cold fusion welds
water installations
PP (polypropylene) Crystalline. Lightest weight piping 0°C/100°C Mechanical couplings/
plastic. High chemical resistance fusion welds
PE (polyethylene) Crystalline. Flexibility allows pipes to be -20°C/60°C Electrofusion/butt welding;
coiled and supplied in long lengths. Used mechanical fittings
for water and gas distribution
PVDF (Polyvinylidene Crystalline. Exceptional chemical -40°C/140°C Heat-welded coupling/
fluoride) resistance and weathering. Expensive mechanical
PVC-U Amorphous. Good strength to weight 5°C/60°C Solvent welding/
ratio. Brittle at low temperatures threaded fittings
PVC-C Amorphous. More ductile than PVC-U. 5°C/95°C Solvent welding/
Can be used with fluids up to 85°C threaded fittings

¢stabilisers are also available, allowing
external used of certain plastics which
would otherwise be affected by sunlight;
■ biocides, to prevent microbiological
degradation.
All thermoplastic pipes are
manufactured by extrusion, and the fittings
are either pressure moulded or fabricated
from extruded pipes. This commonality in
production techniques allows greater
consistency between products by different
manufacturers. Thermoset products,
however, are manufactured by a variety of
methods and therefore more differences
occur between manufacturers.
The product range of plastic pipes is
ample and the following are the most
commonly available materials:
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is a
thermoplastic material of the vinyl family
which has been in use since the 1930s,
giving it the longest track record of all
plastic pipe materials. It generally contains
few additives and no plasticisers, thus it is
usually called UPVC or PVC-U
(unplasticised PVC) to differentiate it from
PVC-C which is made by post-chlorination.
PVC-U has a good strength-to-weight ratio
and excellent corrosion resistance. It has a
working range of 5-60°C. PVC-C shares
PVC’s good chemical resistance but has a
higher temperature range of up to 95°C.
Also, it is much more ductile than PVC-U
which can suffer from brittle fracture at low
temperatures. Both PVC-C and PVC-U are
difficult to ignite and self-extinguish when
not in contact with a direct flame.
Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) is
a “terpolymer”, a family of plastics
involving the combination of three different
monomers to form a single material that
draws from the properties of all three.
Alteration of the quantities of the three
constituents alters the properties of the
finished product, giving it great versatility.
It was originally developed in the 1950s for
use in the petrochemical industry. ABS
possesses outstanding impact strength,
high mechanical strength and good
dimensional stability. Its temperature rating
is between -40°C and 70°C, and the material
stays ductile even at very low temperatures,
making it ideal for cold water applications.
Polypropylene (PP) is a versatile
crystalline polymer with a temperature
range of 0°C to 100°C. It has excellent
chemical, abrasion and impact resistance
properties, making it ideal for a range of
industrial pipe supply purposes including
chemical processing, industrial waste
treatment, pharmaceuticals, effluents, etc.
Its characteristics are perfectly suited to
process applications including
pharmaceutical and chemical processing.
Polyethylene (PE) is a crystalline polymer
discovered in the 1930s which has been in
use for water and gas distribution since the
1950s. Because of its great flexibility, it is
available in coiled form allowing long spans
without joints. It can also withstand ground
movement and pressures very well, as was
demonstrated by the survival of Tokyo’s
water supply system after severe
earthquakes in the 1990s. Its temperature
range is -20°C to 60°C. It is virtually
unbreakable at temperatures over 5°C but
remains very tough even at the bottom of
its range. PE has a very strong resistance to
abrasion – the highest of any piping
material – and it is thus exceptionally well
suited to the handling of slurry or fluids
with a high level of suspended particles. PE
will withstand most caustic substances and
acids with the exception of strong oxidising
acids (nitric acid, for example). One
important relatively new application of PE
pipes is the lining of existing pipes without
the need for excavation.
Polybutylene (PB) is a polymer developed
in the 1950s from butylene which is
obtained from fossil fuels. It is a non-
corrosive, frost-resisting polymer with a
temperature range of -5°C to 95°C. It is
creep resistant and has high impact
strength, meaning that it returns to its
original shape when deformed. It is also
very flexible, which eases its installation.
“Standard pipes”, which are normally single
layer, are used for cold and hot water
installations, but “barrier” pipes are
necessary for central heating or underfloor
heating/cooling installations. Barrier pipes
incorporate an internal oxygen barrier that
prevents ingress of oxygen into the system
through the pipe walls, as this would
contribute to corrosion of metallic elements.
Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is a
homopolymer without additives. It has
excellent chemical resistance, a very wide
temperature range (-40°C to 140°C) and
high mechanical strength. It also benefits
from good welding characteristics and heat
formability. Because its price is relatively
higher than other plastic pipes, its use is
generally limited to highly corrosive
environments where other material would
be inadequate.
Table 1 (above) summarises and
compares the properties of these products.
At present, plastic pipes are still
manufactured in both imperial and metric
ranges, which have one important
difference: measurements in the imperial

BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09


FIGURE 1: EXPANSION – MILLIMETRES PER METRE PER 10°C
Mild steel
Stainless steel
Copper
PVC-C
ABS
Polybutylene
Polypropylene
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5
range refer to the internal bore, while metric
ones are referenced by their external
diameter. For example, a 2” ABS pipe has a
bore of 2” (50.8mm), and the metric nearest
equivalent is 63mm with an internal bore of
50 mm. Great care should be taken when
repairing or amending installations to
ensure compatibility. Similar complications
arise when matching plastic and metal
pipes, as the latter are always referenced by
their external diameter. Comparative tables
are available from manufacturers and
should always be consulted.
Most properties of the polymers used
in plastic pipes are temperature-dependent,
particularly linear expansion, as shown on
Figure 1 (above) which compares expansion
for each 10°C increase in temperature for
various polymers with that of metals. In
practical terms, this means installations
must be designed to accommodate thermal
movement of pipes, either by changes of
direction, expansion loops where there is
sufficient space, rubber bellows where space
is limited, flexible braided hoses, etc.
Alternatively, PP pipes for example can
have an outer aluminium wrapping which is
bonded to them and restricts expansion.
Also, a special grade PP has been developed
for low water content heating applications,
which reduces expansion by up to 80%.
JOINTING METHODS
Amorphous polymers can be jointed by
solvent cement welding, where the pipe is
cut, chamfered and inserted into a socket or
fitting. This method should not be mistaken
with gluing, as it produces a homogenous
welded joint. It is quick, requiring no special
tools or skills, and therefore inexpensive.
Crystalline polymers cannot be solvent
cement welded as they are resistant to
solvents and they are jointed by heat fusion
welding. This can be by:
■ electrofusion, where a resistance wire
moulded into the socket is energised by a
control unit which heats the plastic and
forms a permanent weld.
■ Socket fusion, which makes use of an
electrically powered heater plate to which
male and female blocks are attached. Pipe
and socket/fitting are pushed into the
heater block which heats the plastic and
fuses them together.
■ Butt fusion jointing, which also uses a
heater plate to join pipe to pipe. In many
instances, assemblies can be prefabricated
by butt fusion and any site jointing
necessary is done by electrofusion.
Mechanical jointing is also possible, by
either push-fit couplings, rubber joint
fittings or compression type fittings. Metal
valves or pumps can be connected to plastic
pipes with BSP composite unions or
flanges. Where temperature changes are
negligible, plastic threads can also be used.
Pipes used for the distribution of
potable water should be approved under the
Water Regulations Advisory Scheme
(WRAS). This assesses water fittings
products to ensure they do not waste,
misuse, unduly consume or contaminate the
water supply, in compliance with
Regulation 4 of the Water Supply (Water
Fittings) Regulations 1999. Some
manufactured plastic systems are listed in
the List of Approved Products published by
the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI).
WHY PLASTIC PIPES?
Referring to “plastic pipes” as one single
product can be misleading as the various
materials described here can have different
properties. However, they share many
characteristics and their use offers
numerous advantages, including:
■ High chemical, biological and abrasion
resistance. It is always important to select
TECHNICAL 47
the correct product according to the specific
requirements of the installation as
properties change from polymer to polymer.
Because of their high abrasion resistance,
plastic pipes are suitable for handling slurry
and other abrasive materials.
■ Excellent corrosion resistance. As plastics
are non-conductive, they are not affected by
galvanic or electrolytic erosion, and can be
buried in acid or alkaline soils without
additional protection. The inner surface of
the pipe does not scale or corrode.
■ Low friction loss. The inner surface of
plastic pipes is very smooth, having a
Hazen-Williams C factor of 150 or higher
(C is the roughness coefficient in the
empirical formula relating the velocity of
water flow in a pipe with the pipe’s physical
properties and the pressure drop due to
friction). This means that less energy is
necessary to transport a liquid, resulting in
lower pump energy consumption.
■ High flexibility, which is of particular
importance in underground installations to
accommodate ground movements.
■ Lightweight, which has obvious impact
on transport and installation costs. For
example, most plastic pipes are 1/6th of the
weight of the equivalent steel pipes.
■ Low thermal conductivity, resulting in
reduced heat losses.
■ Sustainability. Plastics require less
energy during manufacture than metal,
minimise heat pump energy consumption,
reduce transport costs because of their light
weight, can be generally recycled, and are
non-toxic.
■ Good weathering properties. Some
polymers have inherently good weather
resistance whereas others are less resistant.
In all cases the properties of the base
polymer can be improved by additives,
including UV stabilisers, heat stabilisers to
protect from temperature extremes, etc.
COMMENTARY
Plastic pipes now have a long track record
of established good performance and a
proven potential to reduce installation and
operational time and costs. However, the
variety of available products is such that
building services engineers must take
particular care that all requirements are
considered to ensure that the right
products, meeting the appropriate
standards and approvals, are selected.
© Mónica & Alex Grinfeld 2009
Further reading
■ Durapipe, Plastics – A viable alternative for
building services available at
www.bsdlive.co.uk/piping.
■ Farshad, Mehdi, Plastic pipe systems: failure
investigation and diagnosis, Elsevier 2006.
■ Harper, Charles A, Modern plastics handbook,
McGraw-Hill, 1999.
ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
48 TECHNICAL

MODULE 7
Having read this CPD module and made use of Send this page by 20 October 2009 Name (capitals please)
the bibliography, you should be ready to answer (Unfortunately, due to time restrictions, any
each question below. Tick one box per question. answers received after the above date will not ....................................................................................................
be processed.) Job title
1) Thermoplastic polymers are:
❑ A Those whose chains are tangled in no To find out your score, complete this answer ....................................................................................................
particular pattern sheet and EITHER photocopy this page and Company name
❑ B Those whose chains are lined up in fax to +44 (0)20 7560 4014 OR scan the
ordered crystals page and email to bsd-cpd@ubm.com ....................................................................................................
❑ C Those that once cured cannot be Alternatively, for a quicker, greener way of Address
resoftened by heating completing the modules please go to
❑ D Those that can be repeatedly softened by www.bsdlive.co.uk/cpd ....................................................................................................
heating
Answers to Module 7 will be published in ....................................................................................................
2) A 10°C increase in temperature will the November 2009 issue. Postcode
produce expansion of a polybutylene pipe of:
❑ A 0.5 mm Answers to Module 6, September issue ....................................................................................................
❑ B 0.9 mm Trench heating Telephone
❑ C 1.3 mm
❑ D 1.5 mm Q1: B Q2: D Q3: A Q4: C Q5: A ....................................................................................................
Facsimile
3) The working range of polyethylene is:
❑ A -20°C to 60°C All queries about the CPD collection should ....................................................................................................
❑ B -10°C to 60°C be emailed to bsd-cpd@ubm.com Email
❑ C -20°C to 50°C
❑ D -10°C to 50°C Information you supply to UBM Information Ltd may be used ....................................................................................................
for publication (where you provide details for inclusion in our
Unique reference code
directories or catalogues and on our websites) and also to
4) The following three thermoplastics are all provide you with information about our products or services
amorphous: in the form of direct marketing activity by email, telephone, ....................................................................................................
❑ A ABS; PE; PP fax or post. Information may also be made available to third (this number will be allocated upon your
❑ B ABS; PVC-U; PVC-C parties on a list lease or list rental basis for the purpose of first submission and should be quoted
direct marketing. If at any time you no longer wish to receive
❑ C PE; PP; PB anything from UBM Information Ltd or to have your data made
thereafter)
❑ D PVC-U; PVC-C; PVDF available to third parties, please write to the Data Protection
Co-ordinator, UBM Information Ltd, FREEPOST LON 15637, Which of the following best describes
5) The most common jointing method for Tonbridge, TN9 1BR, Freephone 0800 279 0357 or email your job function:
PVC-U is: ubmidpa@ubm.com ❑ Consultant
❑ A Mechanical jointing ❑ Contractor
❑ B Heat welding ❑ Local/national government
❑ C Solvent welding ❑ Financial services
❑ D Butt fusion ❑ Health authority

if you’re seeing green, it’s time to switch to BSD

FOR YOUR OWN REGULAR COPIES VISIT: BSDLIVE.CO.UK/REGISTER

BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09

50 TECHNICAL
PRODUCTS
HEALTHCARE
As the colds and flu season
approaches, this month’s round-up
of products and services focuses on
hygiene and infection control.
THORN u
Invincible II is Thorn’s range of
sealed luminaires for cleanrooms.
The smooth, extruded aluminium
frame is easy to clean and uses
toughened safety glass to shield a
prismatic diffuser or louvre. The
unit is sealed to IP65 and a “self-
regulating breather” prevents any
air and moisture ingress. Lamps are
T5 or TC-L, and emergency and
dimmable versions are available.
SITEXORBIS u
Property and security services
firm SitexOrbis offers an
infection control process using
antibacterial agent Activ8, which
it claims disinfects 99.9% of all
viruses and bacteria, both
airborne and on surfaces, in
minutes.
The process involves filling
every space in a premises with a
vapour of Activ8, which is
harmless to humans.
The list of infections it is
claimed to be effective against
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
HCP p
Anti-ligature radiant heating panels
have been installed at two PFI
projects for Peterborough Hospitals
by SAS international company HCP.
The design of the panels reduces
the opportunity for patient self-
harm. Radiant heating facilitates
reduced internal air temperatures,
leading to lower energy
consumption. The company claims
that the outputs of up to 500W/m
maintain patients’ comfort levels
and could even encourage faster
recovery times. The flat panel
design makes the units easy to
clean, according to HCP, reducing
the risk of cross-infection
associated with traditional wall-
mounted systems.
include salmonella, MRSA,
Clostridium difficile, SARS,
listeria, avian flu and H5N1
influenza A type viruses.
SitexOrbis offers a range of
treatments to meet specific
business requirements. This
could take the form of regular
visits or infection control in the
event of outbreaks.
 TECHNICAL 51

RADA q
Shower and washroom controls
specialist Rada claims its new Acu
digital mixing valve for washbasins
will improve hygiene standards and
decrease the risk of spreading
infections. The thermostatic mixing
valve is spout-activated and offers
programmable maximum, minimum
and default temperatures, as well as
duty flush and thermal disinfection
capabilities, which are important for
legionella control. The Acu has infra-
red, non-touch activation for on/off
and temperature adjustment. Simple
programming allows selection of
timed flow control and temperatures
can be pre-set in three modes –
clinical, patient and surgical – or for
“free use” (up to a maximum of 48C).

SANYO q
Sanyo claims its Virus Washer system
suppresses infections in the air
through the effect of electrolysed
water. The company says the resulting
hypochlorous acid denatures the
protein spikes on the viral cell wall, so
it cannot attach to a host’s cell
receptors.
Sanyo says a joint research with the
Gunma Prefectural Institute of Public
Health and Environmental Sciences in
Japan shows the system is highly
effective in suppressing the H1N1
(swine flu) virus. The Virus Washer
technology is available in Europe as
domestic and commercial use air-
purification units. The electrolyzed
water is created by combining tap
water with electricity without the
need for any additional chemicals.
According to Sanyo, the technology
is at least 99% effective in
suppressing infectivity for a clinical
strain of the new H1N1 influenza virus.
In verification testing, a suspension of
the virus was exposed to electrolyzed
water with a free chlorine
concentration of 2mg/L for 10
minutes. Effectiveness of the virus
washer technology for infectivity
reduction was confirmed for the new
H1N1 influenza virus, just as it had
been confirmed for the seasonal
influenza virus.

ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009

52 BSD4JOBS.COM

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To advertise your vacancy with bsd4jobs.com please telephone 020 7560 4249 ISSUE 09 / BSD OCTOBER 2009
BACK PAGE
YOUR DIGITAL WORLD
Twitter has been a revelation for Kate
Nelson, helping to control her inbox while
she works on her beloved Mac. Other top
sites help her to practise what she preaches
on sustainability at home and in the office.
KATE NELSON, PRINCIPAL
SUSTAINABILITY
CONSULTANT,
CAPITA SYMONS
Favourite website?
I am hooked on etsy.com, which
sells handmade items from
around the world. It links me
into UK-based designers and
artists. As someone who works
in responsible procurement, I
love buying one-off items.
Favourite gadget?
I became a Mac user last year –
it was love at first drag and drop.
Most useful website for work?
The best way to get the latest
information is to stop
subscribing to email
newsletters and follow your
favourites on Twitter. It keeps
your inbox clear and you can
choose what to follow up on.
Last track you downloaded?
I am all about spotify.com,
where you can listen to most
albums free (legally), but the
last download was Useful
Chamber by Dirty Projectors.
Subject of the last email
you received?
Skittles! We are building
an intranet for our
sustainable design lab.
We have been inspired
BSD OCTOBER 2009 / ISSUE 09
“
by Skittles.com. It plugs into
Twitter, Flickr and YouTube to
generate content, so it is by the
Walkit.com people for the people.
helps me
avoid Social networking or face-to-
face?
spending Hard to say. I am a fair-weather
time cooped friend of Facebook but can see
up in taxis or its potential. At this stage I
prefer a conversation over a
on the Tube pint of ale.
”
Favourite blogger?
My friend Charlotte, who is on a
cookery bootcamp in Ireland
(http://chopchop-charlotte.
blogspot.com). She works for
Sustain and has helped me be a
more ethical eater.
Best link you’ve been sent?
Walkit.com – we are based in
London’s Victoria and it helps
me to walk to all my meetings
instead of being cooped up in
taxis and the Tube.
What was the last thing
you bought online?
A fruit and veg box from
Abel and Cole.
Funniest piece of spam?
Spammers have become so
lazy, I haven’t had a good
piece in ages. But I did hear
a funny story about a big
tunnelling project and a filter
that deleted emails which
included the word “shaft”.
BSDLIVE.CO.UK
BSD’s feature comparing Green
Star, LEED and BREEAM ratings
brought this response from
Jason Buch:
“One important thing to note
about Green Star is that the
energy benchmarks are in
kgCO2/m2/year. A building
calculates its energy usage and
converts it into carbon dioxide
based on fuel types and location
(because the electricity grid is
more carbon “dirty” in certain
areas). The authors of the study
have used Dubai carbon
conversion factors (presumably
0.43kgCO2/kWh), which are
much lower than Australian
factors. It is not surprising the
building scores well against the
benchmarks, which were created
for Australian buildings with
much higher carbon conversion
factors. Green Star benchmarks
are set for specific countries and
regions. This appears to be an
important oversight by the
authors of the study.”
BLOGGERS UNITE
Your contributions are what
makes the BSD blog. If there’s
an issue you feel passionate
about, feel free to contact us at
bsdeditorial@ubm.com.
TWEET LOUDER
Join the ever-expanding BSD
Twitter following at twitter.com/
bsdlive. If you’re blocked at
work, you can still see the latest
Tweets on sustainability issues
via the Twitter hashtag feed at
www.bsdlive.co.uk.
JOIN OUR WIKI
Upload details of your projects
at www.bsdlive.co.uk/wiki. You
will be able to add items as the
project progresses.
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