The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has joined forces with the sector’s leading research body BSRIA to produce a comprehensive free guide for the use of refrigerant gases in building services. The new publication has been written by BESA’s head of technical Graeme Fox and is available now for free
BSRIA has launched its free-to-download topic guide on Soft Landings and Business-Focused Maintenance (BFM). This guide aims to inform those involved in the design, construction and operation of a building about how an effective BFM regime can be developed and achieved through the soft landings approach. Nick Blake, the guide’s
A new report by the BSRIA has indicated that there has been a healthy growth in the amount of BACS products in the United States of America. The demand for the implementation of these systems having gone up regularly by 2.5 per cent every year since the year 2015, it
The British Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) has released its first snapshot of the UK HVAC and smart energy market landscape for products after Brexit. It is estimated that the smart energy and HVAC product market is worth £4.5 billion in the UK each year. Market growth was expected
The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has joined forces with the sector’s leading research body BSRIA to produce a comprehensive free guide for the use of refrigerant gases in building services. The new publication has been written by BESA’s head of technical Graeme Fox and is available now for free download from the BSRIA Bookshop. It has been prepared to help consultants, specifiers, facilities and project managers, installers and end users deal with a period of considerable change for the industry as legislation and tightening environmental and performance targets combine to increase restrictions on how refrigerants are used and what gases will be allowed in the future. The increased use of heat pumps and greater focus on climate change mitigation, including the need to address overheating in buildings, means industry professionals are faced with greater design and installation challenges and opportunities to adopt new practices, which are covered in the guide. ‘Refrigerants in Building Services’ (TG 21/2022) includes information and advice on: * Current environmental and health and safety legislation affecting refrigerants * Forthcoming changes to legislation * Energy efficiency issues * Commonly used refrigerants * Applications including DX coils, chillers, split systems, VRF/VRV systems and heat pumps * Sources of further information. The two bodies were keen to work together to promote best practice across the sector and to fully explain the implications of stringent cuts to the use of HFCs and other bans as part of proposals to strengthen the European F-Gas regulation. The UK continues to ‘mirror’ the regulation, despite its departure from the EU, and the latest proposals from the European Commission include an acceleration of the current phase down process in 2024. This could be followed by a ban on the use of HFCs with global warming potential (GWP) of 150 and above in many split systems and heat pumps from 2027. “The timing of this guide is crucial,” said Fox. “There is so much change going on in the industry and there is a danger that people will be bamboozled by all the current and proposed legislative changes. If people are confused, they can end up simply ignoring their obligations with extremely unfortunate consequences. “We were, therefore, very keen to work with BSRIA on a document that would be both informative, practical and relevant to building engineering systems designers.” Fox added that the new guide reinforced the importance of people being properly trained and holding up-to-date technical and health & safety qualifications to work with both traditional and alternative refrigerants. This is particularly important because many HFC replacement refrigerants are mildly flammable, he pointed out. It also reminds end users that they should only employ F-Gas registered firms to remain legally compliant and to achieve their environmental goals. BESA manages the UK’s primary F-Gas register REFCOM and offers F-Gas Awareness training via its online Academy. BESA and BSRIA will also be jointly presenting a webinar on May 3rd featuring Graeme Fox and BSRIA publications manager, David Bleicher. This will be an opportunity to learn more about the new guidance, understand its wider context and why it is such a timely and important publication. To book your webinar place click here www.theBESA.com
BSRIA has launched its free-to-download topic guide on Soft Landings and Business-Focused Maintenance (BFM). This guide aims to inform those involved in the design, construction and operation of a building about how an effective BFM regime can be developed and achieved through the soft landings approach. Nick Blake, the guide’s co-author and principal consultant on facilities management, said: “It is fundamental to involve the facilities managers (FMs), where known, from early on in the design stage. The knowledge and experience of the FMs can inform better design of systems and make BFM more readily adoptable and easier in operation. “Maintenance can have a major impact on the success of a business and, therefore, can deliver a competitive advantage. It shouldn’t be considered as an overhead – but as a way of adding value to the business. Each building, therefore, should have its own bespoke maintenance programme, which can enable the FM to prevent asset failures through a more pragmatic approach.” He added: “BFM can help the team to first decide which assets are crucial in achieving the business goals and the end users’ needs. Then, soft landings success criteria in terms of the availability, accessibility and manageability of those assets can be set. And the asset strategy and maintenance schedules should be gradually developed during the project and be completed and available at the pre-handover phase.”
A new report by the BSRIA has indicated that there has been a healthy growth in the amount of BACS products in the United States of America. The demand for the implementation of these systems having gone up regularly by 2.5 per cent every year since the year 2015, it is clear that the US markets and businesses are relying more and more on the implementation of BACS into their initiatives. Indeed, with an overall amount of Installed Systems transactions amounting to $5,801 million, it is clear that there is a lot to profit from being affiliated with these systems and more and more companies and enterprises in the richest country in the world are resorting to BACS. As Zoltan Kaparthy of the BSRIA explains, the increasing demand for these on the US market is to be seen as a result of the gradual digitalization of assets around the world. Similarly, it is also due to businesses’ growing worry with the cost of energy implementation and it is evident that more and more are trying to work hard to reduce these in the future in order to secure themselves a more sustainable development plan for the future. Of course, the amount of building and construction that goes on is subjective to the way that the country’s economy is going and with the current fluctuations taking place in the USA it is uncertain what the future will be. On the other hand, compared to their Canadian neighbors the United States of America have invested a great deal more in construction initiatives, which is indicative of the staggering amount of BACS found out by the BSRIA report. By “construction” however, it is important to understand that more changes and renovations to existing properties have been under way in greater amounts than the amount of new properties being built. It is therefore important for more strategies to be put into place in order to ensure that more properties are built in North America.
The British Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) has released its first snapshot of the UK HVAC and smart energy market landscape for products after Brexit. It is estimated that the smart energy and HVAC product market is worth £4.5 billion in the UK each year. Market growth was expected to be a healthy 3.1% for 2016 prior to the Brexit vote but Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) research with suppliers post-Brexit now anticipates this will shrink to 1.1%, a reduction of £95 million compared with the pre-Brexit view. In particular for air conditioning, the forecasted growth has dropped from 12.8% down to 5.5%, while smaller splits have suffered because of a cool summer in the first half of the year, along with issues with the distribution chain, higher than expected residual stocks and a weakening in the critical retail market. VRF and central plant products are much more closely linked to bigger schemes which are close to completion: typically offices and hotels. Project delays resulting from Brexit may have a small effect in 2016 but will mainly impact the market between 2017 and 2019 according to BSRIA. However, floor space statistics suggest a big growth in completed projects in 2017 so this will likely mask any Brexit effect until 2018, according to the snapshot. Andrew Giles, director of worldwide market intelligence at BSRIA, said: “Around 80% of the £2.2 billion market is domestic boilers, water heaters and radiators. Renewable alternatives remain niche markets: heat pumps are falling with RHI having a limited impact. The main heating markets are saturated and over 90% of sales are for replacement and extensions/refurbishment.” The UK has, by some distance, the biggest boiler market in the world, with almost 1.7 million boilers sold each year and this is expected to continue for the next few years.
