The impact of indoor air quality on the comfort and well-being of students is gaining increased attention. Dr Hywel Davies, CIBSE Technical Director , summarises some recent research on the subject and describes the latest guidance on new schools design The need to maintain air quality in schools is a hot topic - literally. The Government is scheduled to publish a revised version of Building Bulletin 101: Guidelines on ventilation, thermal comfort and air quality in schools . The document provides guidance on the design and construction of school buildings in order to provide good indoor air quality and thermal conditions to create effective conditions for teaching and learning.  A draft of the proposed amendments has already been published. They call for the designers of schools in areas of poor air quality or in low emission zones to give careful thought to keep internal pollution within acceptable levels. One way of achieving this is to design a building to be airtight ...

Fresh from its win at the H&V News Awards in the Best BIM Innovation award, CIBSE digital engineering consultant Carl Collins explains what BIMHawk is, and where it fits into the BIM landscape. In Level 2 BIM products are described by 3-D geometry and by their accompanying technical information. The output from separate modelling systems, eg. architectural, building services, structural engineering are combined in a single common data environment to create a digital 3-D representation of the building and its systems. Using this model software can then enable the coordination of the mechanical and electrical services, for example, with the other building components such as the structure. The same common data set, will allow an operative to select an object, such as a chiller, and interrogate its properties, such as when replacement parts are needed under planned maintenance. When collections of objects are joined to create a system, all of the objects in a system can inheri...

BIM is an area of constant innovation, but without the work of hundreds of volunteers this pace of change wouldn't be possible. Iain Paterson, Business Development Manager at UK fume cupboard manufacturer Safelab Systems Ltd.  gives a manufacturer’s account of creating the all-important Product Data Template (PDT) for a product category. Since they continuously expel conditioned air from a building, fume cupboards are an extremely influential component of the building services engineering remit for many educational and research   buildings. In a typical new university STEM building, where there might be from 30 to 130 fume cupboards, a complex interplay of face velocity, air flow rate, make-up air requirements and discharge velocities will have an impact on the design of HVAC systems and the required duct diameters and fan specifications.  The design will have a significant impact on the awarding of BREEAM credits. Modelling the effects of various fume cupboard co...

CIBSE’s Home Counties North West (HCNW) Region hosted an event in February, exploring the president’s theme: why building performance often fails to satisfy users.   Stuart Huggins, Head of Maintenance - South at Fresh Student Living , was at the talk and provides his view of the debate.   The discussion focused on: collaboration: integration of user requirements into design; the role of FM; how new technology can add value to post-occupancy evaluation (POE); and how this could feed back to designers. Panel chair Chris Jones discussed the uncertainty that Brexit has brought about for legislation and building compliance. Speakers Kevin Barrett, David Stevens, Mike Darby and Chris Jones focused on planning, briefing and conception. Accelerating cost-fixity, differing agendas, failures to identify user requirements, rapid value engineering, contractual divisions, changes and compressed programmes were all identified as contributors to poor integration, with rushed...

As part of our series on the future of heating in the UK we sat down with Phil Jones, Chair of the  CIBSE CHP/District Heating Group , to discuss his thoughts on the future of the commerical boiler sector in the UK. Will it lose ground to renewables, or could there be a joint solution? What are the biggest challenges facing the commercial boiler sector and how can they be overcome? Firstly, competition from other low carbon heat generators is slowly eating into the commercial boiler sector’s share of the market. The Government has recognized low-carbon heating solutions in its 5th Carbon Budget as a key way of tackling the UK’s carbon footprint, and within the industry initiatives like CIBSE’s Codes of Practice on Heat Networks are making them an attractive alternative financially. They’re also suffering from lower heat demands in buildings. Firstly, new buildings are subject to tighter energy regulations, meaning that they have to be built to be more efficient and use small...

After the University of Bradford’s unprecedented second win of the top prize at the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Building Performance Awards, CIBSE’s Technical Director Dr Hywel Davies explains what makes the University’s work stand out The University adopted a 'fabric-first' approach, renovating outdated and inefficient elements The University of Bradford’s Department of Estates and Facilities is no stranger to the Building Performance Awards – they won two awards in 2012, including the overall Champion’s Award, for the impressive work they had carried out under their imaginative ‘Ecoversity’ programme. That they are back again in 2017 with another two wins under their belt proves the effectiveness of the strategy they created and their long term commitment to buildings that perform to meet the needs of the University. In common with many universities in the UK, the Bradford has a large and varied building portfolio, which often...

Towards the end of 2016, the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) partnered with CIBSE and Scottish electrical trade body SELECT to produce a survey that assessed how much built environment professionals know about 'smart' technology. With the results in Steve Martin, ECA Head of Specialist Groups , goes over what we've learned Just 20 per cent of the UK’s commercial buildings are considered to be ‘smart’ at present. It’s likely that as this vast market grows, many building clients, such as architects, consultants and facilities managers, may not be ready for this technological revolution. With this in mind, the ECA, CIBSE and SELECT launched a ‘connected technology’ survey for clients last year, to help understand the current state of play. Overall, there were 229 responses to the survey over a three-week period in November and December, including responses from consultants, engineers, end clients and facilities managers. The survey show the UK lagging in kn...