Home News Details

HVAC FOR SCHOOLS, WORKING TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

19th November, 2009

In meeting the needs of the BSF programme, designers, contractors and manufacturers need to work together to provide flexible H&V solutions, says Warwick Taylor of S & P Coils Products Limited.

WITHOUT A DOUBT, the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is one of the most exciting and significant government roll-out programmes for many years. And that significance manifests itself in many ways.

Not least of these is the potential to ensure higher standards of education; an objective that has already been validated by results from schools built during the early years of the programme. Just as importantly, it will clearly form a cornerstone of the government’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions, with a target of carbon neutrality for schools by 2016 driving ever-tighter energy targets.

Furthermore, BSF is incredibly important to the H&V industry. With the decline in demand from the commercial sector, public spending could well be the key to the industry’s survival during the next few years. For all of these reasons, I would argue that the H&V industry has a responsibility to provide the best possible service to BSF projects – by using the most appropriate products, to deliver the best performance without compromising on comfort.

Here, one of the most important factors will be flexibility. While there is a standard performance specification for BSF schools, the reality is that each school will be different, so compliance will be achieved in different ways. To that end, manufacturers like ourselves need to respond by offering flexible solutions that can be tailored to specific requirements. Our own experience shows that bespoke solutions will often provide the optimum performance with minimum energy consumption.

Unfortunately, the current uncertainty over scheduling BSF projects poses a danger that some will lack the time to implement tailored solutions and may end up compromising with off-the-shelf products. The majority of school projects need to complete to coincide with term dates. Managing a migration of pupils and staff from an old to new building in the middle of a term would be extremely disruptive so there is considerable pressure to have new schools ready for the beginning of a term or half-term.

In parallel, though, we have already seen some delays in the start date for some projects, so they begin late but are still expected to finish on time. This compression of the schedule has the potential to impact on the fit-out phase and, quite possibly, lead to compromise on the performance of the building. To give just one example, we were specified to supply radiant panels to a BSF school before Christmas but, because of uncertainty, the order wasn’t placed until February. The March delivery date remained the same and, of course, we pulled out all the stops to fulfil the order on time.

However, not all manufacturers have that level of flexibility so such a situation does have the potential to disrupt activities at site level. Even if the manufacturer delivers on time, the structural elements of the project that need to precede the installation of services may be out of sync. This poses a risk of valuable equipment being stored on site for long periods, increasing the likelihood of damage before installation, resulting in further delays.

This is an area where contractors and manufacturers can work together. The reality is that, irrespective of when the order is placed, the invoice will not be issued until after delivery, so there is no financial risk to the contractor. On the contrary, by providing manufacturers with the maximum possible lead time they will receive a higher level of service that supports their on-site activities and maximises the building’s performance.

In this respect, the government can also do a lot more to ensure BSF projects run smoothly, simply by acting to remove any uncertainty. And the signs are quite encouraging. The current government has already confirmed its commitment to maintain the BSF programme and the recent announcement of additional financial support for PFI projects reinforces this.

Article from the HVR ‘HVAC for Schools’ supplement 2009
http://www.heatingandventilating.net/news/HVACforschools.asp

Home News Details

HVAC FOR SCHOOLS, WORKING TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

ARCHIVE