Category: Construction Industry Today | Subscribe to Construction Industry Today Feed Published Fri, Mar 18th 2016 Jewers Doors put the finishing touches to the new £15 million Ambulance and Fire Services Resource Centre (AFSRC) at Wrexham with the installation of 14 pairs of Swift fast-acting, bi-fold doors. Posted via Industry Today. Follow us on Twitter @IndustryToday The new AFSR Centre accommodates eight fire appliance vehicles and six ambulances and replaces an obsolete fire station and two ambulance stations which are now co-located onto one modern, fast-response site. Jewers Doors were commissioned to install doors where safety, reliability and speed of operation, were the prime factors. Each door comprises four panels, with two leaves folding to each side of the exit. Fire and ambulance vehicles need to exit rapidly when under ‘blue light’ emergency response conditions, and Swift doors take less than seven seconds to fully open automatically.  In the event of power failure, each door can be instantly and effortlessly opened manually via low-level disengage handles to prevent delays. A four metre vertical roller door not only typically takes twice as long to open, but drivers find it more difficult to judge when there is sufficient height clearance.  In the urgency of responding to an emergency call, there is a risk of tall vehicles such as fire engines hitting the bottom of the door while it’s still opening, which not only requires a costly repair to the door, but more expensively to the vehicles ladders and roof lights.  As Swift doors open to the side, there is full height access at all times and drivers have full line of sight of the doors as they open, thus ensuring a safe exit.   Leading edges of the doors are fitted with full height pressure sensitive edges, so if doors were to meet resistance during closing, they would immediately stop and reverse, however, photocell beams inside and out create a safe area around the door to greatly reduce the risk of an impact ever occurring. Gareth Davies, project manager for BAM Construction Ltd said, “Jewers have been supplying Swift doors for North Wales Fire since 2008. The doors installed at Wrexham underline their reputation and do justice to this new state-of-the-art emergency centre.” Swift door panels are manufactured as a single piece construction, fully insulated with CFC-free foam materials to optimise thermal efficiency and reduce noise pollution by 25dB, and fitted with multi-wall rubber seals to all edges to reduce water, air and dust ingress as well as heat loss. ends Editor NotesHi- res images available on request More about Jewers DoorsEstablished in 1983 and still a family run business, Jewers Doors is a world-leading supplier of industrial doors operating from a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Bedfordshire. With over 50 highly skilled and experienced staff, the core of the business is design, manufacture, installation and repair of industrial door solutions across all industrial sectors. The Phoenix range of doors are designed for medium to large industrial applications, while the Esavian range is recognised as one of the world’s leading range of aircraft hanger doors.  Incorporating the very latest concepts and technologies, Jewers Doors have been installed not only in the UK, but also throughout the world including Europe, Middle and Far East and New Zealand.  Source link

Research from Funding Options, an alternative finance broker, found that bank lending to property developers had more than halved in just two years. Banks lent £16bn to developers in January 2016, compared with £34bn during the same month in 2014. According to Funding Options, developers are encountering particular problems accessing short-term bridging or auction finance, needed for the early stages of a project. “Property developers need finance to start projects and most traditional banks are unable or unwilling to provide it,” said Funding Options chief executive Conrad Ford. Mr Ford added that “on current trends there is no chance” of the government meeting its target of building 200,000 new homes a year. “This collapse in bank lending to developers cannot be helping the housing crisis – the more difficult it is for developers to secure finance the fewer properties will be built,” he said. The research comes after one of the country’s leading housebuilders warned that housing supply was likely to struggle to keep up with demand. In an interim management statement last Friday, Berkeley Group said that it welcomed the government’s “intention to address” the housing crisis but added that “supply may not respond positively to due to a number of inter-related factors”. It said these factors included “complex and sometimes conflicted policies around planning and affordable housing”, as well competing demands on public land and a high-tax regime for property. Source link

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has this evening (15 October 2015) named National Theatre the 2015 RIBA Client of the Year. The annual award, supported by The Bloxham Charitable Trust, recognises the key role that a good client plays in the creation of fine architecture. RIBA President Jane Duncan said: “Architecture needs clients who take a long-term approach to their properties, and few have had a longer commitment than the National Theatre. Ever since Sir Laurence Olivier’s initial dream in the 1960s of a national theatre with a permanent home on London’s South Bank, successive directors have seen architecture and theatre as being mutually inter-dependent. Sir Denys Lasdun, Stanton Williams and Haworth Tompkins have successively given an improved theatrical experience to actors and audiences. The result of both of the latter architects’ work has made Lasdun’s masterpiece more than worthy of its Grade I-listed status.” The winner of RIBA Client of the Year was announced this evening (Thursday 15 October) at the RIBA Stirling Prize party at RIBA in central London. The RIBA Client of the Year award is supported by The Bloxham Charitable Trust. The Architects’ Journal is media partner for the RIBA awards, including RIBA Client of the Year, and professional media partner for the RIBA Stirling Prize. The RIBA Stirling Prize is sponsored by Almacantar. ENDS Notes to editors: 1. For further press information please contact Callum Reilly in the RIBA press office: callum.reilly@riba.org 020 7307 3757 2. View and download images: https://riba.box.com/s/qy4qch8ge67ps9dxg2tgr2p0ykfa0jdd 3. Almacantar is a property investment and development company specialising in large-scale, complex investments in Central London, with the potential to create long-term value through development, repositioning or active asset management. Since launching in 2010, Almacantar has acquired a number of prime assets with untapped potential in the heart of London, including: Centre Point, Marble Arch Tower, CAA House, 125 Shaftesbury Avenue and One and Two South Bank Place. www.almacantar.com For further information please contact: Finsbury +44 (0)20 7251 3801 Faeth Birch 4. Previous winners of RIBA Client of the Year include The Royal Shakespeare Company (2011), Olympic Delivery Authority (2012) and the National Trust (2013) and Manchester Metropolitan University (2014) 5. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) champions better buildings, communities and the environment through architecture and our members. Visit www.Architecture.com and follow us on Twitter. 6. Tom Bloxham MBE of Urban Splash supports the RIBA Client of the Year award through his charity The Bloxham Charitable Trust. 7. For more information on The Architects’ Journal visit www.architectsjournal.co.uk   Posted on Thursday 15th October 2015 Source link

Boost business with LPG tumble dryers Published:  14 July, 2016 Calor is urging rural installers to become qualified in fitting LPG tumble dryers, in order to tap into a new market and boost their business. Recent research has found that LPG tumble dryers cost around 25% less to run than standard electric dryers, making them a suitable appliance for the two million UK homes that are off the mains gas grid. In recommending the switch to LPG home heating from alternatives such as electricity, oil, or solid fuel, Calor says installers can benefit from the additional work alongside this conversion, such as fitting a new LPG boiler and tumble dryer – as well as other LPG appliances such as fires and cookers. LPG tumble dryers use the gas to heat the air inside the dryers, which in turn dries the laundry. They still use a small amount of electricity to turn the drum and power the control panel, but this is less than 10% of the total electricity used by a standard electric dryer. As well as being cheaper to run, LPG models can be more energy efficient too. Calor’s LPG dryers have an energy rating of A, whereas regular electric dryers most commonly have an energy rating of C. This means they can be more than 40% more efficient than electric dryers. Teresa Wafer, appliance manager at Calor, said: “Installers should arm themselves with these statistics about the cost and energy saving benefits of LPG tumble dryers, and inform their off-grid customers about these benefits in order to gain new LPG installation work.” Gas tumble dryers also help reduce build-up of static in fabrics, which can damage clothes and a reverse tumble action means that items are less likely to become tangled and creased. Calor’s LPG dryers can be fuelled by Calor gas from bottles, or from a larger storage tank if LPG is already used for home heating. Source link