Tower Block
Watercooled VRV Air Conditioning in Iconic Tower Block Refurbishment.
_tcm46-84747.jpg "Tower block(1)")
The £3.5million refurbishment to No 1 Croydon, formerly known as the NLA Tower, has seen the famous ‘70s octagonal shaped 82 metre high landmark building emerge as imposing as its new name suggests. No 1 Croydon, gleaming white after a deep exterior clean with its top 9 floors refurbished and fitted with state of the art VRV-WII water cooled air conditioning, has added upwards of 70,000ft2 of high grade office accommodation to the town’s thriving commercial centre. The imaginative over night use of multi coloured lighting also serves to underline still further this already iconic building’s domination of the local sky line.
Subsequent to a performance specification by consultants, EDCM Consulting, Birmingham, long term Daikin D1 Partner McDowall Air Conditioning (UK) Ltd, Sutton Coldfield, designed, installed and commissioned a VRV-WII water cooled heat recovery system that could fit into the available 250mm ceiling voids and also utilise the existing main central plant.
Replacement of the original perimeter terminal units by the VRV-WII system allowed re use of both the building’s condenser water circuit and existing air handling plant. All 27 VRV systems, comprising over 160 fan coil units, were installed and commissioned in 20 weeks, including stripping out the earlier air conditioning units.
Conditioned air is supplied to the open plan office space via slim style Daikin FXDQ ceiling concealed fan coil units located in the false ceiling void and ducted to swirl diffusers mounted, in the main, around the perimeter of the room. Further diffusers are located inboard to allow for future cellular office layout. Return air is extracted through inboard ceiling grilles.
Each floor is provided with 3 VRV-WII condensing units, mounted singly or double stacked in mini plant rooms adjacent to the toilet areas. Each unit is connected by a two pipe flow and return water circuit and supplied with water via a pressurisation unit at a temperature between 25°C and 35°C depending on the time of the year. Liquid/gas refrigerant lines link the condensing units with the concealed ceiling indoor units installed per floor. Primary tempered and filtered fresh air ventilation is supplied by roof top air handling plant to the false ceiling void and fan coil units where it is cooled or heated as required and ducted to office areas. Internal office design temperatures are 22°C +/- 2 deg Cdb (summer and winter) at external ambients of 30°Cdb, 20°Cwb (summer) and - 4°Cdb, 100% saturation (winter). Fresh air ventilation rate for the offices is 8 lit/sec/person based on an occupancy level of 1 person/12m2. Cooling loads are approximately 80kW per floor.
Cooling and heating is controlled by 2 Daikin I-manager air conditioning management systems, utilising the independent Daikin multi transmission DIII-Net high speed communication system and enabling floors to be divided to suit separate tenants. _tcm46-84749.jpg "Tower block(2).")
