HUMPHREY CLARKE CONSULTANTS LTD
Building Services Consulting Engineers
Tel: 01489584322
e mail: hc@humphreyclarke.com
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EMPTY BUILDINGS
Humphrey Clarke • 2 June 2020
If it is empty now don't do this!
An empty building cost money even when nobody is using it. It is so tempting to switch off the power, valve off the water, drain down and forget it until someone wants to use it again. If that is your thought STOP do not do that! You could be storing up a huge bill for yourself, many time the cost of keeping power trickling into the building. We were summoned some time ago to a building like this and several years into re-occupation they were still struggling to remedy the residual problems and pouring money into remedial work. Here is a list of just some of the problems you can incur:
- In a few hours the Fire Alarm will cease to work and sounders will fail immediately. This may invalidate the buildings insurance.
- The emergency lights will switch onto batteries and after about 3 hours the batteries will be exhausted; the building will have to be powered up for some hours before these are replenished and until then the building is unsafe for normal use. Oh, and batteries left flat for extended periods may need replacing.
- Many pieces of equipment have software installed in them which was tailored at installation; loss of power for a period of a few days can cause them to lose that programming and it can cost £x000 to re-programme a whole building's worth of fan coils for example
- If you drain the water out of a heating and cooling systems you lose the (expensive) chemical inhibitors, (and may well be fined for contamination unless you have a licence to drain the system.) Once drained corrosion of steel pipework sets in with a vengeance and even if it does not result in leaks there will be plenty of debris formed to block filters, control valves, boilers and chiller evaporators.
DO DO THESE THINGS
If your building is empty do carry on basic maintenance, keep on top of water hygiene tests, boiler maintenance, emergency light testing. Take advantage of empty spaces to carry out above ceiling works such as fan coil maintenance and checking fire damper locations and operation. Run the air handling plant periodically to prevent damp, mould and stale smells developing.
We are happy to give tailored guidance to you on mothballing buildings safely, maintenance for short term unoccupied buildings or reviving closed down buildings!
IF YOU ARE ABOUT TO RE-OCCUPY A BUILDING AFTER THE LOCKDOWN
There is some useful guidance issued by CIBSE at:
https://www.cibse.org/coronavirus-covid-19/emerging-from-lockdown
This affects even you! You are probably aware of the F Gas Regulations which have banned some refrigerants such as R22 and R11. What you may not know is that most of the current range of common HVAC refrigerants such as R407, R410 and R32 are also being "squeezed" by the production limitations imposed by those Regulations. One manufacturer has stated that based on current demand and recycling rates they will not have enough of these refrigerants to cope with routine servicing and replacements for the existing installations, let alone the new ones still being installed. There are no silver bullet drop in replacements and not likely to be either. The few replacements available are flammable or toxic or both and so are seriously limited in how large the systems can be and what safety measures have to be applied. This also applies to heat pumps that are being heavily promoted as a "green solution". Our general advice is that if you have 4 pipe fan coils and an external chiller do not be seduced into replacing them with a VRV/VRF system; you may be having to replace it again in 5 years time when the price of the refrigerant rockets. Stick with an external chiller where the refrigerant can be kept in one place, monitored or contained easily and where the wind dissipates it if there is a leak. If you have a dying or elderly VRF system please talk to us before you commit to anything and we will advise based on the current available solutions which are changing and are likely to evolve.