Founded in 1879, Royal Holloway University in Egham Surrey, is one of the top research-intensive institutions in the UK. Internationally recognised for excellent research and teaching across the arts, sciences, social sciences and management. Set on a 135 acre site, with a range of grand buildings such as the Founders building dating to the Victorian era and an internationally diverse student population, the university has a very busy estates and maintenance department.
The brief
Western Air Ducts Ltd were approached by the Estates and maintenance department of the University, for advice and help with the modernisation of the extraction system in their carpentry workshop. With the current system becoming old and inefficient, it was felt that the system needed to be redesigned and replaced to offer better protection to the operators from dust exposure.
What we did
After consultation and site visits, Western Air Ducts Ltd offered two options, one to replace the system as was, with a new fan, filter unit and ducting to be operated from a single control panel, or a second option to introduce their Intelligent control system. Inteliair™ is designed and manufactured by Western Air Ducts as a solution to help reduce operating costs, lower carbon emissions and improve air quality by maximising the efficiency of dust and fume extraction systems. This is achieved by the automatic and continuous monitoring of demand using localised switching that detects when extraction is required.
With a very comprehensive Environmental Sustainability Policy, the option to install Inteliair™ which is a Carbon Trust Accredited, product. Recognised to reduce Carbon emissions and reduce energy consumption by up to 40% was an easy and natural choice for the University.
During a two-day shutdown period, Western Air Ducts fully decommissioned and removed the old extraction system from the carpentry workshop, and installed the new fan and filter units along with the Inteliair™ system. Inteliair™ was installed with mechanically operated dampers controlled by Inteliair™ damper control units and our own design current sensing switch, these switches detect the change in current when an item of machinery is turned on for use, a signal is then sent to the damper control unit, which opens the damper and informs the Inteliair™ main control unit that extraction is required. In turn the main control unit signals a variable speed drive which controls fan speed and ramps the fan up to the required levels. These levels are determined during a thorough commissioning process which involves measuring air flow within the system ducting and at the extraction points to ensure that levels of extraction reach those as set out by Coshh Regulations.
The outcome
This combination of Inteliair™ components means that the fans for each extraction systems only run at the levels required depending on how many items of machinery are in use, which means the fans are not running at 100% all day wasting power and money in energy costs.
