Flat pack solution solves Newport centre’s refurb dilemma
Moducel flat pack units have solved access problems for a major refurbishment at The Newport Centre in south Wales.
The centre is one of Newport’s premier entertainment venues and a major amenity for the community.
In addition to hosting high profile sporting events including The Welsh Snooker Open and world championship boxing, the centre also has a leisure pool with flume, multipurpose sports hall with a Solutions fitness gym, health suite, function rooms for hire and a cafeteria.
The centre was originally built in the 80s. Much of the plant was showing its age and due for a replacement and coincided with plans to carry out major refurbishment work totalling in excess of £500,000.
It has 20 AHUs housed in several plant rooms in different locations throughout the centre that supply cooling and heating. They all needed replacing, but it was flagged up early on by one of the council’s own mechanical engineers that this would not be a straightforward project as all the AHUs have poor access. When the centre was originally constructed, in common with many 80s builds, much of the equipment and facilities were in situ prior to the walls being erected. Little thought was give at the time to replacement of ageing plant and the building was literally erected around equipment.
Tony Ward, Newport City Council’s Mechanical Engineer realised that access was a major problem when replacing the AHUs and that any replacement had to fit within the available space in the plant room.
A customised solution was realistically the only solution if interfering with the fabric of the building was to be avoided.
Although the plant room is located on top of the building accessibility was far from easy with the only direct access via the sports hall and would then need to be hoisted up on to a narrow walkway, logistically it was not possible without major structural alterations.
“It was not practical to start tampering with doorways and creating access points to the plant room, this would have affected the day-to-day running of facilities and put them out of action for a considerable time,” comments Tony Ward.
Moducel’s factory in Stoke-on-Trent offered the ideal solution – flat pack air handling units – based on a kit format, units manufactured using a modular design and assembled on site thus negating the need for any building alterations.
Moducel is one of the few manufacturers that can offer a true ‘flat pack’ solution and has built up a reputation for being able to design units to the specifications required and in a format that lends itself to a complete knock down formula known euphemistically in-house as ‘IKEA’ style.
LKP units were specified and Tony cites the reasons as two-fold “Moducel has the expertise and capability to design and manufacture any size of AHU and its LKP range offers a high spec and proven efficiency.”
Moducel developed the range as a flat pack or kit form configuration. The LKP’s modular casing construction lends itself to adaptation for project requirements and its high specification gives long life expectancy and low ‘life costs’.
A strategy involving the replacement of six units at a time was agreed. Over a phased period to minimise disruption. The units range from 1.95m³/s E up to 5.86³/s E air flows according to the capacity of the unit and offer supply only, extract only, supply only double stacked and supply and extract double stacked. As each AHU was replaced, there was a seamless switchover to the new unit.
The first phase is complete with the second phase currently in progress; the third and final phase will be completed next year.
“Flat pack is not a new concept,” says Joe Wieckowski, General Manager Colman Moducel “whilst it requires innovative design and engineering techniques, it also enables greater creativity in design and siting of plant without being constrained by the use of standard AHU units.”