Our Lady of The Rosary School, Staines — a six-week plant room rebuild in which the room’s air supply and electrical distribution were renewed alongside the heating plant, including removal of the redundant feed and expansion tank, a new louvred door, a new distribution board, a new flue and new controls.
More than a boiler change
Most plant room projects are described by the plant that goes into them. This one is better described by everything around it.
Alongside the new gas-fired condensing boilers, the works at Our Lady of The Rosary took in the plant room’s own air supply, its electrical distribution and the redundant water storage left behind by the previous system. Replacing the boilers on their own would have left a modern installation sitting inside a room still configured for the plant it replaced.
The feed and expansion tank
The existing feed and expansion tank was stripped out as part of the works. On older installations this tank sits at high level and tops the heating system up under gravity. It is a maintenance liability — it needs access, it is exposed to whatever the roof space does in winter, and it is one more thing to inspect.
Removing it as part of a move to modern condensing plant takes that liability out of the building rather than leaving it in place and working around it.
Air supply and electrical distribution
A new louvred door was installed. A plant room containing gas-fired appliances needs a reliable supply of air, and the door is the part of that provision most likely to have been altered, blocked or replaced over the life of a building. Renewing it as part of the works keeps the room’s air provision matched to the plant now installed in it.
A new distribution board was also installed, giving the plant room its own renewed electrical supply arrangement for the boilers, pumps and controls rather than extending the arrangement that served the previous equipment.
Scope of works
- Strip-out and disposal of the existing plant room equipment
- Modifications to the existing gas service
- Installation of new gas-fired condensing boilers
- Design and installation of a new flue system
- Installation of new plant room equipment
- Strip-out of the feed and expansion tank
- Installation of a new louvred door
- Installation of a new distribution board
- Design and installation of new controls
- Pre-commission cleansing
- Testing and commissioning
- Builders work in connection with the mechanical installation
- Making good and weatherproofing of the flat roof around the flue
- Provision of record documentation
Delivery and handover
The programme ran to six weeks, reflecting the wider scope: the mechanical strip-out and installation, the builders work, the electrical distribution, the door and the roof making good around the new flue were all delivered by the same team rather than coordinated across several contractors.
The system was cleansed, tested, commissioned and handed over with record documentation.
This is representative of the commercial plant room work ComGas delivers across education, where a plant room replacement usually reaches further into the building than the boilers alone.
