100 Bishopsgate, London
State of the art boilers installed in London’s newest landmark building.
100 Bishopsgate, LondonTaking it to the roof: State of the art boilers installed in London’s newest landmark building.The City of London is the historic centre of the capital, as well as the international hub for financial services, including insurance, commodities trading and investment. On a prime corner of the ‘Square Mile’, a striking new 40-storey office tower has arisen with services provided and installed by M&E contractors Michael J Lonsdale of Slough.
The owners of the tower, Brookfield Properties, targeted the highest standards of energy efficiency, productivity and comfort for its occupiers. As a result, environmentally conscious systems and materials were sought to maximise sustainability and reduce the carbon footprint over its lifetime.
The project team at Lonsdale’s approached me seeking advice pertaining to the selection of high-quality condensing boilers to meet with the building load of circa 10MW. The consultant’s specification showed steel shell and tube boilers with separate condensing economisers and acoustic burner shrouds. The boilers and economisers were shown piped separately and were to operate at differing temperatures. That being 60/40°C at the economisers, for enhanced efficiency, but 80/60°C across the mild steel boilers to prevent condensation from occurring which could lessen life expectancy. Mixing valves would be installed on the boiler circuit to reduce the operating temperature of the boiler circuit to match that of the economiser circuit.
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My solution was to propose 6 no. Trigon XXL1700 high efficiency condensing boilers as manufactured by Elco Heating Solutions. The stainless steel construction meant the boilers could operate at the desired temperature of 60/40°C which improved operating efficiency and meant that the designed in mixing valves could be omitted. The prevention of condensation was not applicable with this type of boiler due to the materials of which it was constructed. In fact the more condensation that could occur the greater the efficiency of the boiler due to latent heat energy, given up when flue gases condense, being passed directly into the heating system. The “all in one” design also meant that much pipework could be omitted, where applicable, making considerable cost savings. These savings, coupled with the reduced cost of the appliances compared with the equipment that was originally specified, meant significant reductions could be passed to the client.
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The location also lent itself well to the boilers’ lightweight modular construction. The units were transported to the rooftop plant room using a crane and once operational, their low water content kept the overall installed weight to a minimum, removing the need for any additional reinforcing of the floor.
Consultants Hilson Moran extended their thanks to me for bringing this much simplified, more efficient, ultra low emission and significantly cheaper solution to everyone’s attention. So much so that they specified the same range of boilers for another project they were working on which was the conversion of the old American Embassy in Grosvenor Square London to the Chancery Rosewood Hotel which opens it’s doors in 2025.
