Big lift for Airedale chillers onto courts rooftop
Leeds, UK, April 18, 2008 -
Two Airedale chillers, each weighing 4.26 tons, have been lifted onto a Birmingham city-centre rooftop to supply cooling to the Birmingham Civil Justice Centre housed in Priory Courts.
Roads around the eight storey Priory Courts building, formerly Lewis’s Department store, were closed and buses rerouted to facilitate the lifting operation, which took place late on a Sunday evening using specialist crane facilities. Featuring very high ceiling heights, the Priory Courts building is 80 metres high and required a lift of 82 metres by one of the biggest mobile cranes in Europe.
Providing 900kW of cooling to the courts and associated offices, the two Ultima Compact chillers were installed by Kershaw Mechanical Services Ltd (Stourbridge). The two chillers represented part of £0.5 million contract secured by Kershaw to replace various manufacturers’ R22 chillers with eight Airedale chillers in Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS) courts across four sites in the Midlands.
The chillers are part of a contract in excess of £1.5 million project managed by international property consultancy EC Harris.
Commenting on the event, Keith Eccleston, project manager and senior consultant at EC Harris in Birmingham, said: “EC Harris acts as managing agents for HMCS in the Midlands and is responsible for approximately 110 buildings across the region.
“We work closely with HMCS’s Estates Team to provide technical and professional support to ensure its buildings are maintained and updated to modern and efficient standards. The installation and updating of the chillers to comply with current legislation is an essential part of this ongoing programme.
“One of the reasons for this contract is the common thread of Airedale chillers. By standardising on Airedale chillers across the court area, we will achieve improved energy efficiency and common maintainability.”
Kershaw’s divisional manager Graham Gibbard said: “Being awarded these very prestigious projects in conjunction with EC Harris for the courts service, presented our installation team with numerous logistical challenges which have been carefully planned and coordinated by our projects manager Mal Parmar.”
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