Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Knowledge Base

Air Source Heat Pumps

Air source heat pumps utilise temperature differentials that exist all year round. The heat is transferred from the outside air to a liquid refrigerant which is transferred through a heat exchanger which transfers heat to water. The hot water is then sent to the radiators or underfloor heating and can be combined with a hot water cylinder to provide hot water.

Multi Use Chilled Beams

Multi use chilled beams can incorporate HVAC, lighting and lighting controls and can be offered in both active and passive chilled beam solutions. In general, chilled beams utilises the warm air as it rises through the room and converts the warm air into cool air via the integral heat exchanger. The incorporation of the lighting and lighting controls offer a sleek solution which combines the HVAC, lighting and lighting control systems.

LED Lighting

Light emitting diode (LED) lighting boasts a number of benefits when compared to traditional lighting such as:

• LED lighting is significantly more energy efficient to traditional lighting with energy savings of up to 80% in comparison to incandescent and halogen lamps and up to 50% in comparison to traditional fluorescent lamps
• Longer lifespan. LED lamps have a minimum lifespan of 50,000 hours with a number manufacturers offering 100,000 hours as the technology continuously improves. This significantly reduces replacement and maintenance costs
• Eco-friendly – LED lighting significantly reduces the building lighting carbon emissions and carbon footprint

Data Infrastructure

Data infrastructure consists of an Extra-low voltage system that supplies a variety of technologies and systems within a building such as; local area network (LAN) structured cabling solutions to computers & telephones, wireless local area network (WLAN) to wireless access points to provide wi-fi services, telephone systems, CCTV, Access Control, Intruder alarm, Fire alarm, Public address systems in addition to home automation.

Comfort Cooling

Comfort cooling is designed to cool spaces primarily to create comfortable temperatures for occupants. So this could be via a number of systems such as an A/C unit, or even an MVHR that uses cooling coils or an NVHR from breathing buildings.

Process cooling is used to remove large amount of heat from a space, providing a more comfortable environment for occupants would be a potential side product but its not the main purpose

Hybrid ventilation systems

A hybrid ventilation system combines both natural ventilation such as openable windows with supplementary mechanical ventilation systems which can be in the form of mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) systems.

Heat recovery systems

Heat recovery systems comprise of a HRV or MVHR system which operates by drawing the rising heat extracted from the air within the room and transferring it to the fresh air which is being filtered in from outside. Separate ducting is provided for the flow and extract systems to ensure there is no cross contamination between the new, filtered air and extracted heat.

Building Management Systems

Building Management Systems (BMS) comprise of head end computer based systems used to monitor the output and health of a variety of mechanical and electrical systems such as heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, lighting controls, fire alarms, security systems, ICT systems and smart meters.

A BMS is central to improving energy efficiency within a building in addition to preventitive maintenance. A BMS can be used to turn off or reduce the output of systems such as lighting, heating and ventilation to ensure the output of the systems are reduced or turned off when the building is not in operation and can monitor and alert to the potential system faults which assists with a planned preventitive maintenance strategy rather than a reactive maintenance strategy.

Intelligent Lighting Systems

Intelligent lighting systems provide the user with full flexibility over the control of their lighting systems. Intelligent lighting systems or ‘smart controls’ afford the user the opportunity to control, dim and even change the colour (using compatible luminaires) of lumianires in separate spaces and even down the control of individual fittings from the comfort of their smart phones or tablets. This also provides a sleek and contemporary aesthetic within rooms by removing individual manual light switches. Pre-set controls can be adjusted to ensure fittings can be turned on at set times of the day/night which can improve security to the building.

Specialist Lighting

Specialist lighting concentrates on the illumination of certain areas within a space, rather than the space itself. This can be due to the complexity of a space such as lighting within operating theatres or can be due to the location of certain artefacts wihtin a room such as the illumination of wall mounted artwork.

Green Roof

A green roof is a layer of vegetation planted over a waterproofing system that is installed on top of a domestic property or the communal area roof of a block of apartments on a flat or slightly sloping roof. Some benefits of using green roofs are;  reduced air pollution and gas emmisions, reduced energy usage as they transfer heat from buildings naturally, imprvoed human health and wellbeing and improved quality of life

Photovoltaics

PV systems comprise of solar panels that are used to convert sunlight into usable electricity. When the sun shines onto a solar panel, energy from the sunlight is absorbed by the photovoltaic cells integral to the panel. The energy created is transferred into electrical electricity which can be fed back into the building effectively creating ‘free electricity’, stored within a battery system for future use or sold back to the grid.

Rainwater Recycling System

Rainwater harvesting systems collect and capture natural rainwater which runs off of large surfaces (called surface water run off) such as roofs and stores it in tanks which are generally located below ground. Above ground rainwater harvesting tanks can be used such as water butts located within domestic property gardens.

Windcatcher System

Windcatcher systems are proposed for use in areas where there are typically low wind speeds and is used for natural ventilaion. The windcatcher systems and the equipment operatw by drawing in the air from outside into a building, which provides natural ventilation in hot, arid and humid areas.

Night cooling System

Night cooling refers to the operation of natural ventilation at night in order to purge excess heat and cool the building fabric. Night cooling operates by using the natural fall in temperature during the nighttime and transferring this into the ventilation system to maximise the efficiency of a building’s ventilation. Night time cooling offers the potential to minimise or even avoid the use of mechanical cooling and improve the internal conditions in naturally ventilated buildings.

Uninterruptible Power Supply

An uninterruptible power supply  (UPS) is a system that provides emergency power to a source of power supply in the event of a main power supply fail. A UPS has an instantaneous start up in the event of a mains supply failure as the UPS utilises energy stored in batteries or capacitors meaning it provides a continuous source of power.