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£8 billion contract gets underway
Underfloor heating specialist Warmafloor (GB) Ltd is to supply systems for the £8 billion Project Allenby/Connaught which will ultimately provide accommodation for more than 18,000 military personnel at 200 sites in Aldershot and across the Salisbury Plain. The work is believed to be the largest underfloor heating project ever let anywhere in the world.
It is being carried out for Aspire Defence Ltd, the joint venture between Carillion, KBR and HSBC which won the 35 year PFI contract, with the Ministry of Defence, which combines large scale construction programmes with comprehensive services provision.
The project will provide 11,500 new and refurbished en suite bedrooms, as well as technical buildings, stores and secure units, office accommodation and leisure facilities, with Aspire being responsible for both construction and facilities management. Overall the project will positively affect the lives of nearly 20 per cent of the soldiers in the British Army.
Project scale combines with the need to minimise long term energy and maintenance costs to make underfloor heating the favoured choice for many of the principal buildings.
Whilst some early designs utilised conventional radiator heating systems, it was quickly realised that, for this project, they would not provide the best option.
Explains Mike Lamb, managing director of Warmafloor: “The potential to make significant savings in energy costs on such a large project is, itself, a major factor in the specification decision making process. Underfloor heating will typically translate to savings of 20 per cent or more in domestic properties. This can rise to as much as 50 per cent in larger commercial and industrial buildings. However, of equal importance in this instance is the impact on maintenance. The removal of surface mounted radiators and pipework should result in huge economies in maintenance time and cost over the 35 year contract period.
“We have worked on many very large and prestigious developments but the Project Allenby/Connaught project, because of its scale, complexity and longevity, is the greatest testimony we could have to our industry leadership.”
The work involves Warmafloor from concept to commissioning, first designing the underfloor systems for the different building types, producing numerous technical drawings and then carrying out installation as each new phase progresses. It will call for hundreds of miles of the Hep2O® Underfloor Heating Pipe, from Hepworth Building Products, which is used by Warmafloor to create the carefully zoned heating grids at the heart of its systems.
Pre-contract design work undertaken by Warmafloor and careful scheduling mean multiple developments can ‘go live’ simultaneously, with the company carrying out up to 40 different schemes simultaneously.
The first projects to be undertaken through the contract are at Tidworth garrison which is situated in Salisbury Plains, where developments include an officers’ mess, technical stores, warehouses, a vehicle maintenance facility and an armoury.
Preparing for the project has involved security vetting of all Warmafloor personnel to meet strict MoD requirements, enabling the company to work on Project Allenby/Connaught developments and, uniquely, also qualifying its team to undertake installations on other secure MoD establishments.
Says Paul Dempster, managing director of Aspire Defence Capital Works: “Once we had reviewed the different heating options in depth, it was clear that Warmafloor offered the practical and financial performance we need. We wanted to work with one provider so as to benefit from partnering and the associated efficiencies. The task then was to find an underfloor heating specialist with the depth of resource and track record to take up the challenge. Warmafloor is one of the few companies with a large enough team of designers, engineers and installation specialists to fit the bill and the expertise to deliver such a major scheme in a cost-effective manner.
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