Nuaire provides affordable cooling for central London residential development
Nuaire provides affordable cooling for central London residential development
Indoor air quality and ventilation manufacturing specialist Nuaire has had its MRXBOX Hybrid Cooling Systems installed into the new Berkeley Oval Village mixed use development in central London.
103 MRXBOX Hybrid Cooling Systems with Nuaire ducting are being installed into one bedroom apartments at Oval Village in an area called the Zone, which are available on a shared ownership basis. Compact in size, they are being installed within each apartment’s utility cupboards.
The MRXBOX Hybrid Cooling System, which is a cooling extension for the MRXBOX Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) range, combines the heat-exchanger coolth recovery of an MVHR system with the cooling effect provided by a DX coil. A wall-mounted room temperature sensor senses indoor temperatures and activates the cooling module automatically when necessary.
The MRXBOX Hybrid Cooling System has been designed specifically to address the issue of overheating in problem areas of developments, where specific apartments or groups of apartments cannot be naturally ventilated and where site wide cooling technologies are not an option. The MRXBOX Hybrid Cooling System significantly lowers the temperature of the fresh-air supply for occupant comfort, and enables compliance with Building Regulations Part O which addresses overheating mitigation requirements in new build properties.
Whilst passive ventilation solutions, such as opening windows, are prioritised under Approved Document O, there are instances when this is neither desirable, nor practical; this could be due to safety considerations, external noise and/or pollution. Located in the heart of London, Oval Village has these issues to contend with, plus higher temperatures than in other parts of the UK as a result of the Urban Heat Island effect.
The MRXBOX Hybrid Cooling System was selected by the consultant on the Oval Village development following an assessment of the acoustics, air quality and overheating. For apartments that would not meet the noise criteria, natural ventilation was not an option and an alternative solution had to be found in the form of mechanical ventilation. Cooling technologies for individual apartments impacted by overheating where looked at. While split systems with fan-coils are a tried and tested option, they weren’t universally suited to all apartments in the development. Such cooling systems come at a premium price and, furthermore, are relatively energy hungry so residents have to have the means to pay to run them. With a number of the apartments at Oval Village allocated as affordable housing, the cost of cooling for the home owner was an important consideration.
The Nuaire MRXBOX Hybrid Cooling Systems were welcomed by the consultant as a means of achieving compliance with Part O without the energy cost of a full cooling system that occupants have to pay for. As well as creating a simple solution to overheating in summer months, the units provide a high standard of indoor air quality year round via high-efficiency MVHR.
Founded in 1966, Nuaire is an indoor air quality and ventilation manufacturing specialist, with multi-award-winning ventilation systems that are used in a wide range of commercial and residential applications, including hotels, houses, stadiums, museums, and healthcare services.
Nuaire is based in South Wales with a factory that covers 18,000m2 and a recently acquired second site, enabling it to manufacture almost all its products on-site. These state-of-the-art facilities operate with minimal impact on the environment, driven by ambitious targets to drive forward green manufacturing practices. Nuaire employs over 600 people and supplies products to over 40 countries around the world.
