Marks & Spencer is equipping all its multi-floor trading stores with Evac+Chairs.

Jeans donated by celebrities and musicians such as Lindsay Lohan and Sheryl Crow have been used in insulation for a five-story habitat for humanity in New York City.

Air Systems Limited have supplied nearly 200 fan coils and air curtains to the new Institute of Molecular Medicine, Epidemiology and Cancer Research being constructed at St James’ University Hospital in Leeds.

Thorn Lighting has secured preferred supplier status from Aspire Defence - a joint venture between Carillion and Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) - to provide the lighting for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Allenby/Connaught PFI contract.

Honeywell Building Solutions is undertaking much of the mechanical and electrical service work at iceSheffield and the neighbouring English Institute of Sport Sheffield – two high-profile sports facilities managed by Sheffield International Venues (SIV).

Energy-efficient fans from ebm-papst have been used in a unique application to resolve a noise issue at a supermarket in Guildford.

Mr Alan North has been elected as the president of the Electrical Contractors' Association (ECA) for 2006-2007. Alan took office at the opening of the ECA Electrical Industry Conference in May 2006, where he spoke of his commitment to drive profitability for all members.

A DACHS mini-Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit supplied and commissioned by Baxi Technologies UK, part of the Baxi Commercial Heating Division, has been installed at a newly constructed replacement primary school in Wigan. The new Hindley Primary School, constructed by Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, NPS North West and Eric Wright Construction through a partnered project, has been designed to be highly sustainable and environmentally friendly, incorporating other green initiatives in addition to CHP including rainwater harvesting and natural ventilation.

White Young Green (WYG), consultants to the built, natural and social environment, has been selected by West Sussex County Council to produce a 'High Quality Waste Facilities Supplementary Planning Document' and associated Sustainability Appraisal. The guidance will supplement the adopted West Sussex Structure Plan and take the form of a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) within the West Sussex Minerals and Waste Development Framework. The document will provide guidance on:

Lochinvar has supplied high efficiency boilers to the new Carriage Works Theatre in Leeds.

Buro Happold has been appointed structural engineer on the Wales Institute for Sustainable Education (WISE), a building intended to showcase the very latest thinking in environmentally-conscious building design.

Cablofil has supplied 10,000m of CF-54 steel wire cable tray to The Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s (RNLI) £17 million Training College in Poole, Dorset.

A spokesperson for BESCA, the competent persons self-certification scheme for commercial and domestic HVACR work, has responded to calls for the Government office responsible for the Building Regulations to cap further scheme applications to reduce confusion in the industry.

Grundfos Pumps Ltd has announced the appointment of Peter Reynolds as the new Managing Director for the UK.

Npower business has become the first major UK supplier to offer Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology – npower smartmeter.

The Reichstag building in Berlin appeared in a new light during the FIFA World Cup 2006. Philips, an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2006, supplied about 700 luminaires which bathed the four sides of the parliament (Bundestag) building in white light in the evening and night hours between 1 June to 10 July.

The Government’s new refrigerant law is welcome, but doesn’t go nearly far enough, according to the HVCA’s Stephen Crocker. If a straw poll of the industry was taken today asking people what they considered the most frustrating issue of recent years, the proposed mandatory refrigerant handling scheme would be right up there at the top.

VRF (variable refrigerant flow) has dominated the air conditioning market for almost a quarter of a century. But that is set to change with the development by Colt of a water and refrigerant flow system, says Darren Civil, the company’s Climate Control General Manager.

Andrews Water Heaters pioneered the break with traditional systems when it entered the market with direct gas-fired water heaters 30 years ago. Gavin Watson, Business Development Manager, explains the benefits this brought to system designers and building operators alike. He also examines the continuing development of modern water heating technology and discusses the large variety of options now available to meet today’s commercial building requirements.

Convergence is the buzzword of the 21st century. It’s a process that’s happening today in many walks of life; the iPod, the mobile phone and the Blackberry are just some of the many devices where developments in electronics and software technology are enabling new combinations of previously disparate functions to be integrated into single products.

One of the gripes that’s regularly heard when the topic of office lighting design comes up for discussion is that the CIBSE Lighting Guides LG3(a) and LG7 (2004) inhibit the creativity of the lighting designer. This may well be true in a minority of cases where a lighting designer is actually working on the project, but for the vast majority of commercial office lighting schemes where this is not the case, LG7 is a useful tool for ensuring that people who work in offices reap the benefit of good, effective lighting in the workplace.

The word prefabrication often conjures up images of the kind of modular housing built in London, Birmingham and Bristol after World War II, but off-site production is a concept now being embraced within modern construction too. As a means of improving the efficiency of a building project and reducing costs, the scope for prefabrication is expanding all the time. Here, Ken Percival, Managing Director for Potterton Commercial explains why prefabricated heating solutions are increasingly popular in the commercial arena.

In the March column we referred to the DTI launch of the new Sustainable Construction Strategy consultation. The aim being to provide the Government with a framework to guide future progress in the construction industry. Launched on 2 February by the Rt. Hon Alun Michael, in the form of a draft Strategy for Sustainable Construction Report 2006 it aims to seek the views of key construction stakeholders.

The new stadia, currently under construction, for example at Islington, Wembley, and also planned for the forthcoming London Olympics 2012, generally go far beyond accommodating state-of-the-art football grounds and athletics facilities. Most now incorporate event and exhibition halls, conference suites, office space and dual function rooms that are used as hotel bedrooms overlooking the central event area, and convert to corporate hospitality boxes on event days. There are also likely to be fitness clubs, concessions, as well as community facilities and numerous bars and restaurants. Every one a veritable small town!

THE PUMP INDUSTRY AWARDS 2006