5 December 2006

STOKVIS ECONO-AIR UNITS FOR THREE MIDLAND SCHOOLS

Econo-Air air handling units supplied by Stokvis Energy Systems have been installed at three schools in the West Midlands .

In today’s climate, school sports halls have become “multi functional” in that they are now utilised for not only sporting activities, but for assemblies, parents’ evenings, concerts and in particular, examinations. Historically, the level of heating in the sports hall has only been designed to achieve 16ºC, which is in adequate, particularly when examinations etc are occurring. Also, a further problem is that sports halls very often have very high temperature gains due to large glazed areas and numbers of persons in the hall – this has meant that ventilation requirements to the sports hall have not only increased but become as important as the heating requirements.

On the first project a single Econo-Air 1500C unit has replaced inefficient fan coil units and helped to cut operating costs in a school sports hall, whilst providing excellent levels of heating and also ventilation into the hall. The project consultants were Brandset Associates.

At another school, an Econo-Air 1355C unit was specified by Capita Symonds to provide heating AND ventilation to a sports hall which had previously been converted into an open plan arts studio, but which was still experiencing ineffective heating and poor ventilation normally associated with sports halls.  Drawing air from outside of the Arts Building , the Econo-Air creates a positive pressure which is used to distribute warm air into the main arts room, but also into adjacent side rooms through door grilles.  Running the fan overnight in summer offers the benefit of a phenomenon referred to as ‘free cooling’, where cold air pre-cools the building fabric before the school day begins.

The third project has solved a school’s combined problem of inadequate heating in the winter months and excessive temperature build up during sunny weather.

On this project, two problems were identified. Firstly, inadequate heating of the hall during the winter months, and secondly, excessive heat gain during the spring and summer months. Consultants Brandset Associates, utilising a Stokvis Econo-Air unit, sized the units to provide heating from minus 3ºC to plus 21ºC, thereby satisfying the heating requirements, whilst the ventilation requirements were based on six air changes per hour, effectively helping to cool the school’s sports hall even in the hottest weather.  Also, if the Econo-Air is run overnight, an effect known as “free cooling” can occur, whereby the fabric of the building is cooled before any activities commence on the following day.

The Stokvis Econo-Air system is both a heating and ventilation unit which improves the “indoor air quality” of the building.

The M&E contractor on all three projects was RMC Mechanical Services.