A unique form of free training has been introduced by the newly formed Trox Academy. A whole day’s training programme covering totally new concepts in the following categories takes place in its Technical Centre, Thetford on 12, 13 and 14 June.

Mitsubishi Electric has announced a mutual agreement with Aspect Cooling Systems Limited (ACS), which will see ACS staff join the Mitsubishi Electric direct sales network.

Baxi Heating UK’s Commercial Division has announced a decision to centralise its water heating and commercial boiler businesses. From June 2007 Andrews Water Heaters and Potterton Commercial will both operate from existing Baxi Commercial Heating premises in Birmingham, creating a one-stop-shop centre of excellence for commercial heating products.

Education and Skills Secretary Alan Johnson and Schools Minister Jim Knight have announced 10,000 places that will be made available for new Diplomas related to building services engineering (BSE).

The editor of this newspaper has asked what our industry should be doing to be more energy efficient, and whether we have the products on the market to meet our efficiency needs. My answer may surprise you.

Chloride Power Protection has appointed Ian Bitterlin as International Sales Director. Ian has an engineering background and is a well known figure in the power protection industry, having previously held senior management positions at Active Power, Emerson and Piller.

A nationwide search is underway for the most imaginative and inspiring developments in engineering and the challenge has gone out to organisations concerned with sustainability and the environment to ensure that the sector is recognised as a centre of innovation.

Buro Happold’s Fire Engineering Design and Risk Assessment (FEDRA) group within the practice’s Specialist Consulting division has appointed Stephen Mackenzie to steer the development of a newly created team.

Off site fabrication and water heating specialist Ormandy has bought commercial water heating manufacturer Rycroft from the Baxi Heating group for an undisclosed sum.

The 2007 National Training Awards celebrated the talents of the building services engineering sector’s most promising individuals, including apprentices, engineers and management personnel. The seventh NTA ceremony brought together award winners, employers, college representatives and industry leaders to celebrate outstanding achievements.

Logic Certification’s Legionella Prevention and Water Treatment course is designed for operatives involved in the installation and maintenance of hot and cold water storage and service supplies.

CentraLine by Honeywell has opened a dedicated training centre to help make buildings more comfortable, energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly. The facility in Bracknell has already proved invaluable in supporting the new CentraLine by Honeywell “Partner” network of independent automation and control integrators.

Hoare Lea Consulting Engineers is delighted to announce that Simon Russett PGDip MIET MIAEE FFB has accepted the invitation to become a Partner of the Firm.

SummitSkills, the sector skills council for building services engineering, has achieved ‘Investors in People’ status. The esteemed title was attained following an extensive assessment from Investors in People (IIP), demonstrating SummitSkills’ successful procedures and strategies amongst its workforce.

HVCA Publications has launched its new Heat Pump – REF TR/30 Guide to Good Practice, a comprehensive manual for the different applications of Heat Pump technology. The 28 page book is compiled in conjunction with the HVCA Technical Committee and other key industry members.

A brand new facility containing equipment able to assess the lighting, acoustics and thermal efficiency of buildings has been installed at the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University.

Polypipe Commercial Building Systems has recently appointed two new Business Development Managers, Adam Smith and Paul Donnelly. Adam, 26, joins after two years at one of Polypipe’s leading distributors, Ashworths. At Ashworths, Adam was responsible for developing the Midlands operations and expanding the key customer base.

This is your last chance to be part of the action at the first Building Controls Industry Awards which are being held in association with the BCIA (Building Controls Industry Association) and BSEE. So if you haven’t booked your table yet then read on to find out more.

In an ideal world for the employer all projects would be defect free. Unfortunately for Mr Employer, we don’t always live in an ideal world and defects do arise. How should such defects be dealt with?

Factors such as rising fuel prices, legislation changes and increasing environmental awareness as climate change rises up the news agenda is placing greater demand on businesses to be more energy efficient.

LG’s range of VRF products is now finding an ever increasing market at prestige sites in the City of London. Consultants, interior designers and contractors are warming to the ease of installation, system efficiencies and sheer good looks of, for example, a Multi V VRF system coupled with Art Cool indoor units.

As part of £750,000 upgrade to its existing brewery equipment, Hampshire-based Triple FFF Brewery Company has installed a 60J gas-fired vertical steam boiler from Fulton Boiler Works.

Sanyo Gas Heat Pump (GHP) technology has been installed at the new luxury five-star Fota Island Hotel, Fota Island Resort, Cork, Ireland. Sanyo installer Kelly Refrigeration of Ennis, County Clare, worked closely with the appointed consultant engineers – E.G Pettit & Company – to devise the most appropriate heating and cooling solution for this prestigious hotel.

Vaillant has supplied Westinghouse Rail Systems Ltd, Hornsey, with two wall mounted, mono-split climaVAIR air conditioning units. The mono-splits, used in conjunction with high efficiency inverter condensing units, provide a total duty of 12kW of cooling and heating to the ground and first floor of the company’s offices.

Local residents in the North East are making a splash at Elswick Park and Pool after Newcastle City Council recently completed a £65,000 boiler replacement project at the public swimming baths.

Surrey County Council’s refurbishment of Quadrant Court in Woking, Surrey has included the replacement of Cat 2 luminaires with a range of fittings from Whitecroft Lighting. These included specially modified versions of Whitecroft’s Cascade recessed luminaires to meet the needs of the project.

Birmingham's £30 million Baskerville House refurbishment scheme has reached completion. Located in the heart of the city, overlooking Centenary Square, Baskerville House offers 195,108 sq ft of grade A office space.

A building management system (BMS) from Priva Building Intelligence has been linked into the IT network at the North Star College in Swindon for easier communications and monitoring of the building’s energy meters.

We have welcomed the planned changes to Part F as they lay down the performance yardsticks that will be the framework of good ventilation practices for many years hence. They also give performance based guidance with suggestions on types of ventilation systems and quoted extraction rates.

How would your end-clients feel if you were to specify a product for their building that couldn’t be guaranteed to work and would have to be installed before you could tell whether it was working or not? Surprisingly, this is the situation with many physical water conditioners (PWCs) in use today.

How you design more sustainable, energy efficient buildings is probably the main challenge facing the global construction industry today. Throughout the world climate change and environmental issues are making front page news and with buildings accounting for 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions the pressure is on.

“Anyone who has spent any time in a timber, glass or steel framed building in the height of summer understands the discomfort of steeply rising temperatures. Anyone who has had to meet the bill for the air-conditioning – or who is concerned about climate change from the resulting CO2 emissions – understands the real cost of this problem…”

The new Flameguard catalogue from Scolmore International Limited has just been released to provide contractors and specifiers with valuable in-depth information on the complete Flameguard system. The launch of the new catalogue is planned to coincide with the grant of UK patent rights covering the novel heat resistant casing which protects against the spread of fire.

The new Mixed Flow Fan Range from Manrose Manufacturing have been designed for applications that require high air flows and pressure without the noise associated with powerful fans.

Invincible II, that’s the name of Thorn’s new range of sealed luminaires for healthcare and industrial cleanrooms. And invincible they really are…in more ways than one.

Hager’s new range of MCBs has an increased current rating of up to 125A with a larger breaking capacity of up to 15kA. The new range will allow contractors to use MCBs in a smaller, more cost effective SP&N board instead of MCCBs in a TP&N board for several applications.

Frico has launched its robust Elektra series, specially designed for use in demanding environments including corrosive or damp atmospheres, shipping and offshore industry, areas of high temperatures or potential risk of fire.

Venture Lighting has just released its European HID Control Gear Catalogue. This comprehensive guide has brought together technical information on ballasts, igniters and capacitors together with advice on their use, making an invaluable tool for luminaire manufacturers and anyone involved in the specification of lighting.

MK is putting the end user firmly in control when it comes to lighting with the launch of its new Aspect DSC (digital scene control) system.

Aico Ltd has just added four new specialist fire sleeves to its best-selling Firecap range of intumescent fire safety products. New Firecap Electrical Trunking Fire Sleeves are designed to prevent the spread of fire through service penetrations made for electrical trunking.

ABB has released a range of passive infra-red (PIR) movement sensors which eliminate the blind spots directly beneath and immediately behind most sensors’ normal visual ranges. Featuring ‘rearfield detection’, ABB’s new PIRs can detect movement in these areas even when placed above a window or door.

Access Technologies Ltd has updated its popular Floorfix range with the addition of the new, easy to work with Floorfix HT (high tolerance) fixing clip.

Carrier Air Conditioning has produced an eight page full colour brochure covering its new comprehensive range of energy efficient Rooftop Packaged equipment. It contains both product descriptions and technical specifications.

Sontay has announced the latest improvements to its website, www.sontay.com, which now provides a range of new functions for customers, including an online ordering service and technical support.

The new, innovative, fire protection system from Siemens Building Technologies not only sets new standards for performance and reliability, it can also communicate easily with virtually any modern BMS installation, thanks to its integral support for Ethernet and BACnet.

Dimplex has extended its selection of commercial heating solutions with the launch of its new range of compact PFH fan heaters. Ideal for the business environment, the powerful heaters emit just 24 decibels of sound – no louder than a whisper.

Mitsubishi Electric has introduced a handy credit card-sized guide to its SMS Text Service to make on-site fault finding even easier for its customers.

Kingspan Insulation has created a new website for its Kooltherm Duct Insulation product range, as part of the company’s on-going commitment to the highest levels of customer service.

In today's world of trying to minimise energy consumption it has never been more important to monitor temperature in buildings to determine energy efficiency and comfort levels in occupied buildings. The new range of ETI ThermaData loggers provide a simple and accountable solution for this.

The Aylesbury KAX Type float valve is the latest addition to the Keraflo extended drop range designed for installation in water storage tanks with raised valve chambers.

Chloride Power Protection has produced a six page colour brochure introducing the expansion of its industry-leading LIFE.net UPS monitoring service to include genset supervision. The LIFE.net remote monitoring package now extends across all critical back-up power and offers continuous surveillance of more than 130 conditions/events likely to impact on the performance of UPS and generator sets.

Simmtronic has developed a new hardwired hub for its proprietary SPEC3 systems driving DALI technology. Ideal for riser mounting, the new SPH.23 DALI Hardwired Hub enhances the SPECS3 lighting control system to provide DALI control to hardwired installations such as stairwells, cloakrooms, lobbies and corridors.

With a diameter of just 30mm, the new flush-mounted JSB Micropoint recessed LED luminaire from Cooper Lighting and Security has been designed to provide unobtrusive and aesthetically pleasing emergency lighting in a wide variety of applications.

Welcoming visitors into commercial premises is given an additional boost with Xpelair’s new ScreenHeat external door, hot air unit. The ScreenHeat range of fan powered doorway heaters create a hot air curtain at the building entrance as well as reducing cold draughts.

Now available from Xpelair in response to the growing need for energy efficiency is the Xvent - a central extract system for multi-point extraction applications, and an alternative to heat recovery ventilation. And for new-build Xvent has been added to SAP appendix Q allowing designers to over write MEV default values to improve SAP ratings.

ELGA Process Water announces new additions to their market-leading range of reverse osmosis equipment. The new models use low pressure membranes which remove up to 98% of dissolved inorganics and over 99% of large dissolved organics, colloids and particles whilst keeping operating costs to a minimum.

Scorpion Power Systems has introduced a new range of gas powered generator sets designed to work with LPG (liquid propane gas) and natural gas. Powered by PSI GM industrial engines, Scorpion’s new range of UK manufactured gas generators do not require manual refuelling and offer a quieter, cleaner alternative to diesel power generators.

New colours, new finishes and new features and benefits are all part of the LG Art Cool collection for 2007. Art Cool is the ultra-slim, uncluttered and stylish indoor unit which takes cool, clean air conditioning- and winter warmth with the use of heat pump into the realms of the interior design accessory.

Rinnai has extended its range of popular Infinity continuous flow gas-fired water heaters with the introduction of a model designed to meet the hot water needs of domestic and light commercial premises.

Danlers Limited has launched a new version of their passive infra-red thermostat control. This new product is designed to control cooling loads such as stand alone air cooling units.

With rising fuel prices and legislation changes placing greater demand on businesses to be more energy efficient, Ideal Boilers has responded by adding four new models to its market leading range of Imax xtra high efficiency condensing appliances.

Commercial and industrial heating installers working on safety critical applications such as nurseries, nursing homes and public buildings can now benefit from Stelrad Radiators’ range of low surface temperature (LST) radiators.

Potterton Commercial has launched the MB Series, an innovative and flexible stainless steel modular condensing prefabricated solution, suitable for new and existing plant rooms, which is set to take the commercial heating market by storm.

The pioneering water-cooled CoolTherm server cabinet technology from Knurr has started to see large scale commercial operation within a significant number of large data centre facilities throughout the UK.

Luxo's latest floor standing luminaire, FREE, combines screen printed or prismatic glass with a mirror five reflector system and cast aluminium head glass. Recently upgraded, FREE now has the option of prismatic glass which increases the light output by 20%.

With environmental concerns currently topping industry agenda Watermatic has developed another innovative product to maintain sympathy with the environment. Condensafe is designed for all commercial applications to eliminate the environmental impact of acidic discharges from condensing boilers and water heaters that reach the wastewater handling systems of all UK utility companies.

Cooper Lighting and Security has introduced a comprehensive new range of high-quality LED luminaires that offer lighting designers unlimited possibilities for using colour within architectural and display lighting applications.

As we all know, virtually all ceiling mounted recessed downlights need to be fire rated or fire protected to prevent the rapid spread of fire via a floor cavity, but there are much bigger fire hazards lurking within our ceilings which have been largely ignored in the past.