Andrews Water Heaters has supplied a solar thermal water heating system to provide domestic hot water for the new Speke Neighbourhood Health Centre in Liverpool. Located adjacent to the original health centre, the new building provides significantly larger premises, offering a vastly improved range of services including diagnostics, dental services, chiropody and smoking cessation, in addition to traditional GP surgeries and clinics.
Developed by Liverpool and Sefton Health Partnership, which brings together both public and private sectors, the building has been designed to a high environmental standard and provides state-of-the-art healthcare facilities. With a smaller carbon footprint than the previous building, despite being three times its size, the new building has attained a BREEAM rating of Excellent thanks to a range of sustainable technologies providing a total of 20% renewable energy.
The building services were designed by Hulley & Kirkwood, who selected the energy efficient systems to satisfy the client’s sustainability charter, comply with the Building Regulations and achieve the highest possible BREEAM score.
Andrews’ SOLARflo solar thermal water heating system was selected by the consultant who commented, “Andrews Water Heaters has a good name within the commercial sector for delivering energy efficient services that are competitively priced, and this equipment provided the solution we required for the building.” Twelve glazed flat plate solar panels are located on the roof of the building, above the plantroom, with the storage cylinder and other components of the system housed within the main plantroom below. Water heated by the panels is transferred to a 1500 litre, twin coil, unvented storage cylinder which provides for additional water heating via a secondary coil served by a condensing boiler.
The system serves approximately 78 outlets located over the two floors of the health centre, comprising wash hand basins, sinks and showers in consulting rooms, treatment rooms, changing and toilet facilities, utility rooms and beverage bays. The SOLARflo equipment was installed by Strong Group and a spokesman remarked, “The equipment is very user friendly, very good quality and, as long as the building is constructed with the installation in mind – in particular the roof and its ability to support the solar collectors – it is a fairly simple installation process and one we will definitely use again.”
Andrews’ SOLARflo collectors provide 90.8% transmission efficiency, 95% absorption efficiency and a low emission loss of only 5%. In addition to the glazed flat plate solar collectors and non-corrosive, stainless steel solar cylinders, the complete Solarflo package also includes solar controls, pump station, expansion vessels, first fill of heat transfer fluid and collector mounting accessories. SOLARflo glazed flat plate collectors are Solar Key Mark Approved and, in common with the stainless steel unvented cylinders and evacuated tubes in the Andrews range, carry a 10 year guarantee. Andrews Water Heaters is part of Baxi Commercial Division, which also incorporates Potterton Commercial and Baxi-Senertec UK.
Rebecca Johnson, Head of Marketing UK & Ireland
Baxi Commercial Division
Wood Lane, Erdington, Birmingham, B24 9QP
Tel: 0845 070 1055
Fax: 0845 070 1059
E-mail: rebecca.johnson@baxicommercialdivision.com
Website: www.andrewswaterheaters.co.uk