Andrews has for many years been supplying water heaters to the UK retail sector and as the range of products has extended so the applications have become more varied. The continually evolving UK shopping culture requires some retailers, like supermarkets, to make relatively frequent adjustments to the various facilities within their outlets. This can involve the need to relocate building services plant and in these situations packaged plant rooms have come into their own. One of the most successful specialists in this field is Constant Air Systems Ltd, which has for a number of years been incorporating Andrews Storage Water Heaters into the packaged plant rooms it constructs and installs for Tesco.
Leader in its field, Tesco has an ongoing programme of refurbishment and refitting existing outlets as well as building new stores, which is currently extending the company's reach across the Republic of Ireland. Martin Wigginton, Director of Constant Air Systems Ltd explains, "For supermarkets generally, the long term view is only 3-4 years. Within the last generation there have been swingeing changes in consumer expectations and hopping preferences. None more so than in the intensely competitive supermarket arena where 24 hour opening is the current growing trend along with Internet shopping via store's web sites. We first saw a period of stores being refitted to increase sales area by reclaiming redundant storage space which had been freed up by bar coding and automated stock control when EPOS technology was introduced. Now we are seeing alterations being made to stores facilitating short terms storage and loading requirements for fulfilment of Internet purchases.
New stores need to be completed and opened on schedule so the main criteria for building services plant is quickness of installation, running economy, reliability and flexibility in times of change. The packaged plant room ensures this, the prefabricated exterior being constructed and all plant fitted and tested off site. On delivery, only connection to the utilities is required. Prompt delivery of each component is extremely important and over the years we have always found Andrews to be reliable. Should relocation become necessary, the entire plant room containing the Andrews water heating equipment, cold water storage vessel and water booster, water softening plant where applicable and automated controls, can be moved in one piece to another area.”
These plant rooms can be standardised offering further benefits to customers like Tesco that order between 30 and 40 of these installations per year. The Andrews CSC 93 is utilised, the largest model in their balanced, sealed combustion flue system storage water heater range. Highly energy efficient it is economical to run, having a storage capacity of 350 litres and recovering 1808 litres/hr through a temperature rise of 44º C. CSC models have a fan assisted flue and its adaptable concentric flue system draws all primary and secondary air from outside the building. This makes for straight-forward installation and means it can be installed or moved virtually anywhere even where installation might otherwise be troublesome, for instance, in areas where air extract canopies cause problems. It has a fully automatic control, BEMS interface and all units for Tesco installations are supplied with an unvented water system pack.
Smaller high street shops traditionally use Andrews Standard or Hi-Flo storage water heaters, according to hot water usage. Larger stores and indoor shopping centres with anchor stores and food halls tend to need Hi-Flo or Supa-Flo plant to meet peak or high volume hot water requirements. Constant Air Systems packaged plant rooms, incorporating Andrews water heaters, are used in many different types of buildings and have been found particularly suitable for leisure centres, hotels and NHS projects.
