Hotel Refurb Central London

Chiller change boosts comfort at Central London hotel

Using two Daikin 560kW air-cooled screw chillers to replace the old units, Nationwide completed the project over two weekends. And, despite high occupancy levels in at hotel, the work was largely unseen and unheard.

Two rooftop chillers serving the air conditioning systems at a six-storey hotel in London’s Blackfriars area were due for replacement. Technically, perhaps not the most challenging project – but typical of central city hotel projects, it had to be achieved without disturbing guests or disrupting traffic. At Blackfriars, these challenges were very real for installer Chris Henderson, Key Account Manager of Edenbridge-based Nationwide Air Conditioning.

Chiller change boosts comfort at central London hotel

Chris Henderson says

"We designed a solution based on the Daikin units, which offer an attractive combination of price and efficiency. We pre-fabricated the pipework to connect the new chillers to the chilled water circuit and arranged road closures for a crane in the street behind the hotel on two occasions. On the first weekend we removed one of the old units, leaving the other system as the sole source of cooling. We then brought in one of the new 4.79-ton Daikin chillers. The second weekend saw the removal of the remaining old unit and installation of the other new unit."

The Daikin EWAD-D-XR chillers have much higher specification than the old units. There is ample capacity, so normal demand on each chiller is economically low and one chiller can comfortably handle a peak load, even if the other system is out of action.

The high efficiency, reduced noise chillers offer an average full load EER of 3 and partload ESEER up to 4. The dual circuit units have single screw compressors with stepless capacity control from 12.5% to 100% ensuring high partload efficiencies. They are optimised for R134a refrigerant and are designed for easy interface with various BMS communication protocols.