LG has provided the air conditioning for some of the most desirable new apartments in the city of London.
The new development – the Westminster Quarter project in Monck Street in central London provides one 7/8-storey building, and one 5-storey building, providing a total of 102 one, two and three bedroomed residential apartments above a 340m2 commercial floor space at ground floor level.
The basement area provides 56 dedicated car parking spaces and cycle parking spaces along with mechanical plant space where the air conditioning equipment has been cleverly located. The apartments are designed to achieve ‘Lifetimes Homes Standards’ and ‘Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4’.
The development of private luxury apartments, many with private outdoor space, offer residents an exclusive gym, 24hr concierge service and a landscaped courtyard. There’s also an impressive landscaped residents’ roof terrace and roof lounge affording unrivalled views of the Houses of Parliament and other iconic landmarks across the city including Westminster Abbey, the Shard and the London Eye.
The property is owned by Taylor Wimpey and McAleer & Rushe were the main contractor whilst Kane Group Building Services were the M&E contractors on the project. Caldwell Consulting was the M&E Consultant and Principal Cooling was the contractor responsible for installing the LG equipment.
The LG equipment was selected and designed by its distributor Exi-Tite’s in-house design team and supplied for the project. It comprised 21 Multi V S units and eight Multi V VRF units providing cooling to all the apartments.
One of the Multi V S heat recovery units provides cooling for the gym and both heating and cooling to the reception/concierge and cinema areas. It was the most energy efficient method of providing both heating and cooling to these areas because the constant cooling load of the gym in effect provides free heat to the reception and cinema areas.
In this project the LG equipment is predominantly used for air conditioning as there is underfloor heating in the apartments. The system is controlled via LG’s BACnet ACP and there are two PDIs for usage measuring.
The installation envelope for the LG equipment is very tight and one unique feature of the installation is the design of the area set aside for the mechanicals to specifically fit with the pipe runs required to connect each apartment to the plant.
The LG equipment was selected for a number of reasons, but one key selection criteria was its superior controls package that allowed energy usage to be measured in each individual apartment by the Building Management System through BACnet connectivity – a specification laid down by the customer.
LG has an impressive track record across all its products – TVs, phones, white goods and air conditioning and heating products – for its controls technology.
This project was one of the first in the UK to utilise the new LG Multi VS Heat Recovery unit – for the gym and cinema area of the development.
Designed specifically for small to medium-sized spaces, this compact and lightweight model offers simultaneous heating and cooling as well as the production of domestic hot water, with considerable installation flexibility and efficiencies.
An industry first, this front discharge, Multi V S Heat Recovery model, fits the gap between Multi Split systems and large VRF systems.
Nigel Treanor is the Contracts Manager at Principal Cooling: “The LG equipment was an excellent choice for this development and the finished installation is very impressive. The controls package is sector leading and offered the flexibility we needed to satisfy the customer’s needs.”
Exi-tite’s Andrew Robinson said: “We were delighted to be involved in this prestigious development close to the Home Office and the Houses of Parliament. It’s a perfect example of how LG equipment can be designed and incorporated in even the tightest installation envelopes. And once again the quality of our controls package tipped the balance when specification was decided.”
To find out more about LG’s exciting range of heating and air conditioning equipment, please visit their website, or you can email LG at uk.aircon@lge.com.