IDEAL COMMERCIAL BOILERS MAKE THE GRADE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Ideal Commercial Boilers has supplied a total of eight floor standing condensing boilers to the University of Londonas part of the University’s ongoing environmental initiative to reduce carbon emissions and minimise running costs through ongoing refurbishment projects. The Evomod and Imax Xtra floor standing boilers have been installed in three student accommodation buildings and are now delivering reliable, high efficiency heating.
Two Evomod 1,000kW floor standing modular boilers were installed at International Hall,
which is located in the Bloomsbury district, and four Imax Xtra 460kW at Lillian Penson Hall, situated near Paddington station. Most recently, another two Evomod 1,000kW boilers were installed at Connaught Hall in Bloomsbury.
The Evomod and Imax Xtra boilers were specified by contracting firm McDonald Brown, who worked on the project with Duncan Clough, Senior Project Manager at the University of London. McDonald Brown’s Director Bill Bones explained, “We have specified Ideal Commercial boilers for a number of projects and have found them to be straightforward to install, extremely reliable and highly efficient. In addition, Ideal Commercial Boilers always provides excellent technical backup throughout the year. The Ideal Commercial technical team, even senior management, are on site very quickly whenever we need their input, which makes a big difference to the speed of each installation.”
International Hall is the largest single Hall belonging to the University of London and offers a total of 997 student rooms. The boiler room is located in the basement and, with the access points into the building being limited in size, the replacement boilers needed to be compact whilst still delivering the high outputs required. As well as offering exceptional energy efficiencies of up to 108.5% net, the Evomod boiler models were selected due to their modular configuration, as each module was light and compact enough to be lowered into the basement via an on-road portable crane before being transported easily into the boiler room.
Access issues were even more challenging at Connaught Hall, as the boiler room is located in a courtyard surrounded by buildings. If the team at McDonald Brown had been unable to find a suitable boiler that could fit through the existing doorways, Bill and the team would have needed to hire a large crane to lift the appliances over the building, involving time and financial costs such as a six week notice to shut off the adjacent road.
Bill Bones affirmed, “Once again, the compact Evomod boilers were perfect for our requirements. Due to their modular design, once in position they simply need to be bolted together with a pre-fabricated manifold before being attached to the pipework, so installation is always quick and easy. In all cases, the Ideal Commercial representatives who commissioned the boilers have been extremely helpful, giving technical and maintenance advice throughout and working to a very high standard. Commissioning at Connaught Hall was completed within two days.”
Lillian Penson Hall, which offers 330 student rooms, also had some complex requirements as the previous heating system incorporated oil-fired boilers. Duncan Clough, Senior Project Manager at the University of London, explained, “Alongside McDonald Brown, we designed a new plant room to accommodate the compact Imax Xtra boilers, and then reused one of the original boiler spaces as a distribution point. This made the most economical use of the space we had.” The lightweight design of the Imax Xtra boilers enabled them to be manoeuvred by hand down a sloping car park and into the basement boiler room, where they were quickly installed and commissioned.
Since the installation of the Evomod and Imax Xtra boilers, energy savings at each student hall have been recorded, with impressive results. Duncan affirms, “We are delighted with the energy savings that have been recorded since the installation of these boilers. At Lillian Penson Hall, the Imax Xtra boilers have reduced running costs by a third compared with the previous oil-fired boiler and, importantly for the University’s environmental objectives, we have calculated that carbon emissions from heating have reduced from 753 tonnes CO2e per year to 277 tonnes CO2e per year.Fuel usage at International Hall has also significantly reduced, with savings of over 15%, and running costs are already noticeably lower at Connaught Hall. As well as delivering impressive cost and carbon savings, the boilers have been running trouble-free since they were commissioned, keeping our students warm and comfortable.”
In addition to providing heat for the student’s rooms, the heating system in each hall also serves a bar, kitchen, dining room, laundry room and games room.
The Evomod floor standing range is a highly specified, energy efficient and easy-to-install boiler option suitable for numerous commercial buildings. Available in four outputs of 250, 500, 750 and 1000kW, Evomod offers one of the smallest footprints on the market for the available outputs and can be stacked up to three modules high to further maximise plant room space. Evomod utilises a stainless steel heat exchanger and the latest heating technology to achieve exceptional net efficiencies of up to 108.5%, exceeding Part L2, and energy use is further minimised by an impressive turndown ratio of up to 20:1. In addition, the high efficiency of the Evomod range still exceeds the stringent assessment criteria required for inclusion on the Energy Technology List (ETL), making these boilers eligible for the Government’s Enhanced Capital Allowance scheme.
The Ideal Commercial Boilers Imax Xtra range is available in a total of ten outputs; 80kW to 280kW as single modules and 320kW to 560kW as master-slave sequence modules, with all options offering low NOx Class 5 performance and extremely high net efficiencies of up to 108.2% at part load, exceeding Part L2 requirements. Each boiler utilises a robust cast aluminium-silicon alloy heat exchanger which incorporates a fully modulating premix burner with gas and air control, ensuring excellent efficiency throughout its firing cycle even down to 20% of the maximum rating.
The University of London
The University of London is a collegiate research university located in London, England, consisting of 18 constituent colleges, 10 research institutes and a number of central bodies. It the second largest university by number of full-time students in the United Kingdom, with around 135,000 campus-based students and over 50,000 distance learning students in the University of London International Programmes. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1836, which brought together in federation London University (now University College London) and King's College (now King's College London).
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