Whitesales smoke vents for housing development

Whitesales smoke vents for housing development

Em-Vent smoke hatches from Whitesales have been specified for Prime Place, a luxury residential building of 181 apartments with views across Canary Wharf and the City. Most professionals recognise that their best chance of meeting all the criteria that decide a building’s success is to follow three maxims:

• create a collaborative design environment;
• involve all experts at the earliest stage; and
• spend enough time planning to add value and improve design.

This principle includes fire safety too, ensuring building design is compatible with smoke ventilation design best practice. Moreover, early involvement adds value by asking essential questions. Is the impact on carbon footprint being considered? Can combining roof access, daylight ingress and smoke and natural ventilation reduce running costs, make building maintenance simpler and enhance daily life for occupants?

For the Prime Place project, Wilmott Dixon brought Whitesales in early to guarantee a fluid working relationship. Whitesales specified Em-Vent smoke hatches, which combine life-saving smoke ventilation, natural ventilation, natural daylighting and roof access. Close working with the project team meant that once the best design was established, bespoke manufacture to a tightly phased timetable was possible. By offsetting the actuator to provide maximum open area and with the addition of manual override, such as a key switch, the Em-Vent smoke vent may also operate as roof access, removing the requirement for an additional separate aperture.

Its sister product, the Es-Vent provides large commercial and industrial smoke ventilation. Both can be specified as solid cover or non-fragile polycarbonate, allowing for the dual purpose of natural lighting. The Em-Vent and Es-Vent fully open to 140° within 60 seconds for efficient smoke exhaust. Both they and the Es-Louvre, a rapid smoke vent louvre for industrial use, are independently certificated to EN12102-2, highly secure, certified impact-resistant to EN 1873 1200 joules, compliant with Building Regulations ADB and ADL and can be networked via control panels with the building management system.

For insightful fire safety design, visit www.whitesales.co.uk, download the smoke and access brochure, or call 01483 271371.

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