HVCA Publications, the authoritative publishing division of the Heating and Ventilating Contractors' Association, has launched a revised version of its popular HVCA Guide to Employment, available for the first time on CD.

The HVCA subsidiary BESCA has launched a training and accreditation scheme which will provide opportunities for Energy Assessors to carry out inspections and write reports on air-conditioning systems required under EPBD legislation.

Ian Livsey, current Chief Executive of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) has been appointed as the new Chair of SummitSkills, the Sector Skills Council for building services engineering (BSE). He will begin his term on 1 January 2009.

The 1993 Dublin Statement on water and sustainable development called for concerted action to reverse over-consumption, pollution, and rising threats from drought and floods - as seen in the UK. Yet, we still use 70% more water than 30 years ago and despite massive regional water company investment, leakage from mains pipes remains a major issue.

Paul Wenden, Fläkt Woods Engineering and Product Management Director, is to become President of HEVAC, the Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning Manufacturers Association. Currently its Vice-President, his two-year term began at the end of July, 2008. During his second year he will also serve as President of FETA, the Federation of Environmental Trade Associations, of which HEVAC is an incorporated Association.

NICEIC Certification, one of the UK's largest suppliers of personnel training and assessments to the heating, plumbing and electrical sector, has produced an online newsletter for its 100 Approved Training Centres called Criterion.

Dimplex has launched a three-day training course on ground source products following the success of its air source heat pump accredited installer training scheme. 

Andy Bray has been appointed as Contracts Manager for Ipswich based Mechanical and Electrical contractor Bower Fuller.

Airedale's Business Unit Manager Mark Dowell is officially an Ironman after a gruelling feat of endurance in Zurich, Switzerland on Sunday 13 July that saw him complete a swim of 2.4 miles, bike race of 112 miles and run of 26.2 miles in 12 hours 8 minutes and in pouring rain.

Cities consume 75% of the world's energy and produce 80% of its greenhouse gas emissions.  However, whilst the activities and buildings within cities contribute heavily to carbon emissions and climate change, they are also proving that they can be part of the solution. 

A Nottingham school has come top of the class, achieving an A grade rating on its Display Energy Certificate (DEC). The certificate rates how efficiently the building is being used in practice and is an important measure of how energy efficient the occupants are.

A new company, IQ Refrigeration, has been launched to offer a cutting edge design and project management consultancy service for sustainable refrigeration and air conditioning solutions.

To celebrate the launch of their new 65kW output GB162 wall mounted gas condensing boiler, Buderus is giving away a free top of the range Bosch professional GSB 18VE-2 combi power drill - the professional tool for the professional installer.

The build-up to the 2009 Lighting Design Awards, the definitive industry night out, begins this month with the call for entries. The awards, the world's biggest and most prestigious architectural lighting competition, are now open for entries until Monday 6 October.    

Pioneering HVACR controls company Resource Data Management (RDM) has acquired a leading Taiwan-based component and electronics manufacturer.

Andover based Shenton Capital Group, which owns Scorpion Power Systems, Merlin Power Management, Powercall UK and Celtaire Air Conditioning Solutions, has announced that it has purchased Lowestoft based LTH Industrial Solutions for an undisclosed sum. 

CIBSE Certification has created a new widget, a tool to enable users to search the Low Carbon Energy Assessor Register, providing them with quick and easy access to expert help.

As part of their ongoing strategy to support their leading position in the Commercial Building Services arena Grundfos has announced a new appointment - Sean Blandford who has now taken on the role as Area Sales Manager for the East Anglia area. 

The £12.75m DG One Leisure Complex in Dumfries offers unrivalled leisure facilities including a multi-purpose sports hall, 25m eight-lane competition pool, health and fitness centre as well as a café.

Need for additional school accommodation has led Worcestershire County Council to an innovative solution, which is simultaneously believed to be one of the most sustainable modular buildings constructed for educational use.

ABB and mechanical & electrical consultants, the Jones Partnership (Swansea) Ltd, have joined forces to deliver an energy-saving system for Safestore, the largest self storage company in the UK. The project involves the installation of ABB's Busch Watchdog passive infrared (PIR) sensors to help save energy in lighting installations and deliver improved security detection in conjunction with CCTV.

A 450kW biomass boiler from Broag has been installed at Stradbroke Business and Enterprise College in Suffolk, heating the school while helping to protect the environment. Stradbroke is a mixed secondary school near the town of Eye in Eastern England with around 370 pupils. Specified by Suffolk County Council and installed by Elyo Services Ipswich branch, the Broag UTSK450kw boiler supplied by Broag-Remeha, and manufactured by Austrian company Gilles, is a replacement for its previous oil-fired boiler plant.

Claremont Group Interiors has completed the interior design, specification, supply of furniture and relocation move-management to the new headquarters offices of Beachcroft LLP, one of the UK's largest commercial law firms. Beachcroft employs some 1400 people at offices in the UK and Brussels and specialises in a wide range of commercial legal sectors including property, healthcare, employment and financial services.

The Savoy, one of the world's most iconic hotels, prides itself on its reputation for firsts as it was the first hotel to generate its own electricity supply, to install electric lifts and to supply constant hot and cold running water and air conditioning. Continuing this tradition, The Savoy is leading the way by showing its commitment to combating climate change through investing in a carbon reduction strategy, as part of the £100 million restoration project it is currently undergoing, to become the most environmentally responsible luxury hotel in London.

Energy saving luminaires, from Ansell Lighting's extensive Solutions 5 product portfolio, have been featured within a major refurbishment project at Cranbrook School in Kent. These fittings include the Recessed Modular Uni exposed T System luminaires and Galaxy PL Downlights, which provide the school with high quality and energy efficient solutions.

One of Europe's largest single sale of close control systems has just been installed in the Data Centre of Internet Facilitators Ltd (IFL) to provide an additional 600kW cooling capacity ensuring the server operating environment is maintained at optimum temperatures.

Venture Lighting has supplied its Whitelux Metal Halide lamps for exterior lighting in the recent expansion of the high profile M1 Drogheda Retail & Leisure Park in Dublin. Housed in luminaires from VeeLite Lighting Limited, Waterford, the lamps were specified for their ability to meet the exacting design criteria for the project, offering long life with high colour stability and excellent colour rendering.

TridonicAtco's Hi-Power LED's have been used to great effect at the new head office of Allied Irish Banks PLC in Ballsbridge, Dublin, one of the largest and most prestigious projects to be undertaken in the Republic of Ireland in recent years. Integral to the three, seven storey high, elliptical core architectural features of the project are 2,300 custom built, sub-miniature LED luminaires using TridonicAtco White Light Hi-Power LED's. In addition to this, custom built, integrated handrail LED luminaires have been used on the five ‘jewellery box' staircase architectural features, incorporating 37,350 Tridonic COB (chip on board) White Light LED's configured on 1,729 linear PCB arrays from the TALEXX range. 

Luminaires from Waldmann Lighting have played a vital role improving the visual environment for people employed in Braemar Shipping's offices in Marylebone, London. Braemar Shipping Services plc (previously known as Braemar Seascope Group plc) is a leading integrated provider of broking and consulting services to the global shipping industry. Its business is operated in four business segments: shipbroking, logistics, technical services and environmental services. The company decided that a different approach to lighting was required following feedback from employees which suggested that the overall visual environment was poor for VDU screen work.

Power Electrics lit up this year's British Grand Prix by supplying 25 FG Wilson generating sets to power four hospitality areas over the four day event.  The units supplied ranged from 20 kVA Pro-Rental generating sets, right up to 1250 kVA Power Modules.

Building services engineers work in a wide range of roles within the sector. Those working at higher levels, as consultant engineers, engineering technicians, supervisors or managers, vary in their educational and career background, with some progressing from trade or craft roles and others entering the industry after achieving higher education qualifications. Many building services engineers become business owner-managers without any further management training. 

Keston has been manufacturing boiler rigs since introducing them to the market in 1996 and we are still the only company to supply fully bespoke and pre-assembled models. The modular design of rigs means that almost any heating solution can be provided, leading to a complexity of design that can leave maintenance personnel scratching their heads. Keston's advanced technology and sophisticated controls do mean that very little can go wrong but wouldn't it be great not to have someone constantly on site to monitor the rig's performance?

Since a large proportion of energy is used in both commercial and domestic buildings - for heating, lighting and general power - a high level of carbon dioxide, the principle greenhouse gas associated with climate change and global warming, is emitted as a result.  In fact, according to Communities and Local Government, buildings are responsible for almost 50% of the UK's energy consumption and carbon emissions. 

BSEE and the BCIA have once again joined forces to bring you The 2009 Building Controls Industry Awards, an awards programme designed to bring together the entire building controls industry in a celebration of the companies, innovations and people that are achieving the highest professional standards and helping to drive this dynamic industry forward.

With buildings being responsible for nearly half the UK's energy consumption and carbon emissions, building services managers are under pressure to improve the energy efficiency of the buildings they are responsible for.  This is the case in both urban and rural areas, for all types of commercial buildings - ranging from offices, factories and processing plants to leisure facilities, hospitals and schools. 

Faced with a combination of soaring energy costs and an economic downturn, many building operators find themselves in the invidious position of needing to reduce energy consumption but not having the capital to fund it - or, perhaps, not having the confidence to release the capital.

Key to the success of The Energy Event is the free to attend, seminar and conference programme. Hosting conferences and seminars in 2008 will be ESTA (Energy Services and Technology Association), MEUC (Major Energy Users Council), Envirowise, CIBSE (Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers), BCAS (British Compressed Air Society) and the Energy Information Centre (EIC).

With soaring energy prices very much in the headlines, leisure operators are taking a much closer look at how they can reduce energy consumption without compromising on lighting quality or health and safety. Lighting specifiers, therefore, have an important role to play in helping them achieve their objectives.

Despite the gloomy outlook for the world economy, the built environment in the UK still looks certain to expand over the coming years with huge planned developments such as the Olympics, the Thames Gateway, the Government's building schools for the future initiative, eco-towns and the general and social house building targets.

This year's call for nominations for the Pump Industry Awards received a record response, with over 50 nominations reflecting the breadth of pump and system engineering and innovation across the globe.  23 finalists have now been selected, and listed below are those companies and individuals who have made it through to the next stage.

A new concept in floodlights, XLed from Steinel (UK) Limited combines a perfect combination of sensor and LED technology to provide instant, bright white illumination. Extremely energy efficient, the electronically controlled LED's utilised in XLed use only one third of the energy consumed by conventional halogen floodlights, without any sacrifice in performance. Maintenance is also kept to a minimum by the 50,000 hour life of the LED's.  

Wieland Electric has completed its selos DIN rail terminal block range with the addition of the WKN 6 TK instrument isolating terminal, a screw-type terminal specially designed for use in secondary circuits of measuring transformers. It short-circuits the current transformer for safe disconnection or separation of measuring devices, which prevents both overheating and generation of high voltages in the secondary winding.

Cruz: that's the name given by Thorn to a new range of technically advanced die-cast aluminium downlights, which give class leading light outputs with great glare control. 

Decoduct conduit and trunking cable management systems from Interplast are formulated to meet high performance criteria and manufactured to meet stringent National and International standards with regard to Safety and Building Regulations.

New slimmer four way cassettes are one of the main features of the updated range of inverter split systems from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Convenient all metric model codes have also now been applied and enhanced control systems further complement the eco-lution range of split and multi systems.

With the recent alert to the Cryptosporidium water bug present in drinking water in the Northamptonshire region, PHS Waterlogic's UV technology provides the ideal solution to this drinking water crisis without the need to boil the water first.

With the benefit of market experience and an increasing focus on rising energy costs Coolmation, the UK's exclusive distributor for Rhoss SPA, has launched a new series of Eurovent-certified R134A chillers featuring the revolutionary centrifugal oil-free Turbocor compressor. Available in capacities from 150kW to 2,100kW the Turbocor range represents the next generation of chiller design offering outstanding energy efficiency.

Titon has brought together its ultra-efficient powered ventilation products under one banner to make specification easy. 

Finder has announced the 13.12 Call and Reset Relay, which is designed to activate an alarm at a remote point and provide local indication of activation. The relay will be of particular interest to designers and installers of attendant call systems in hospitals and care homes, and to contractors involved in the provision of facilities into residential and commercial buildings where occupants may need to call for assistance.

Mitsubishi Electric has continued its advance into the heating market with an innovative new product that offers any building with air conditioning the potential for free hot water up to 70ºC.

Recent years have seen the increased use of non-touch electronic basin taps and mixers to address the needs for improved hygiene and water efficiency in commercial applications.

The new AMP Netconnect EMEA product catalogue for 2008 has been released by Tyco Electronics.

Marflow Hydronics has launched the Remote Commissioning concept; an innovative approach designed to simplify the installation and commissioning of fan coil and chilled beam systems.

LG's Universal outdoor units have been reduced in size to offer space savings along with a concentrated series of additions and improvements.

Sanyo Airconditioners Europe (SAE) has launched its ECO G Gas Heat Pumps M Series - a new low carbon gas driven VRF air conditioning system. An alternative solution to traditional electric VRF, the new M Series offers improved performance and reduced carbon emissions while providing a great solution to power supply issues.

Two touch-screen controllers from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) give building owners precise control over VRF air conditioning systems, and the ability to set individual performance parameters for up to 144 indoor units. The user friendly SLA-3 and SLB-3 controllers provide control, monitoring, scheduling and administrative functions to facilitate energy efficient system management. For multi-tenanted buildings, additional functionality in the SLB-3 monitors energy consumption of individual units, enabling the owner to monitor and calculate tenants' usage and costs.

Anyone involved in the sport of scuba-diving knows the importance of having a dive buddy by your side with a complete set of secondary equipment on standby for use should the unexpected happen, well this summer the Mr Slim range of outdoor units gets a dive buddy too, by the name of Duty-Standby.

Daikin Sky Air FVQ floor standing heat pump units are specially designed for quick and easy installation in high ceiling stores and offices. Extremely quiet in operation, the units include a built-in high efficiency, long life filter which reduces maintenance time and cost.

Already established in the PIR marketplace with its top-selling 360^o PIR detectors, Timeguard has now added to its range more sensitive presence detectors that are just as easy to fit.

Available from Redring is the energy efficient, low noise Aqualoy stainless steel range of large unvented water storage heaters.

Creda has announced the arrival of the TPRIII Electronic Pilot Plus range of energy efficient panel heaters, incorporating electronic thermostatic controls to give precise regulation of room temperature - essential for energy saving and comfort. 

Following  the successful launch of its new range of Low Surface Temperature radiators, Stelrad Radiators has released a new brochure which brings together the LST Standard and Plus ranges to make product selection quicker and easier, and allow specifiers and installers to view the company's LST collection at a glance.

Independent testing of Hoval's new range of Belaria air-source, air-to-water heat pumps has confirmed a Coefficient of Performance of 3.8 - the highest efficiency ever measured for air to water heat pumps at the Buchs Interstate Technical University NTB.

Ruskin Air Management Ltd has launched a new range of Air Diffusion Closed Active Chilled Beam systems.

A new generation of surface and flush mounted vandal resistant modular Door Entry Systems has been unveiled by Videx Security. The success of the 4000 series modular door entry kits has led to this development and also the introduction of the 12 SWG stainless steel vandal resistant amplifier, button and camera modules.  These are housed in the die cast 4000 Series frame.

Offering one of the biggest choices of valves and actuators available, ESSCO Controls (ESBE UK agent) has introduced a new range of  rotary valves and actuators, which the company says marks the next generation in development terms.

Danlers Limited design and manufacture a comprehensive range of high quality controls for lighting and HVAC including a Heater Boost Switch (pictured).

LG'S new Multi V Mini is a compact, easy-to-install, single phase system designed for smaller VRF applications such as small offices, shops and residential.  Its cutting-edge artificial intelligence control enables efficient control and low noise operation for a pleasant air-conditioned environment.

Andrews Water Heaters, part of the Baxi Commercial Division, has updated its popular Size-It windows based electronic sizing programme and extended it to be available on CD-ROM as well as via the company's website.  The programme now features all the latest Andrews products, including the direct fired condensing boilers and SOLARflo collector options, along with heating and hot water system models for mosques, churches, temples and hair salons. 

Seaward has introduced a special upgrade kit to enable those responsible for maintaining electrical safety in the workplace to carry out portable appliance testing in accordance with the latest IEE Code of Practice.

Grundfos has become a well-known name in the supply of high quality pumps for commercial building services applications heating, air conditioning and pressure boosting but have not necessarily been the first name to spring to mind when considering wastewater pump suppliers. 

The on-line pump selection tool from Grundfos has just gotten even better.  Not only have some of the anomalies been resolved but a host of new features have been added.

Rehau has launched a new range of intelligent controls designed to maximise the efficiency and comfort levels of its underfloor heating and cooling systems.

Hamworthy Heating has introduced an extensive new range of pumped pressurisation units which include floor standing and wall hung models; suitable for heating and chiller systems in commercial buildings.

The ETC6000 series of Integrated Burner Management and Fuel Air Ratio Controllers from energy Technology & Control offer effective flexible solutions to a wide range of industrial burner applications.   Installing or upgrading to electronic controls such as the ETC6000 can realistically achieve energy savings of 10% over conventional mechanically linked systems. Increasing fuel efficiency also reduces harmful flue gas emissions.