WEATHERITE HOOKS BREEAM EXCELLENT AWARD AT RUSHDEN LAKES

When House of Fraser opened its’ new store at the unique Rushden Lakes development in Northamptonshire, it decided to go for the “gold standard” in sustainability - and chose Weatherite Air Conditioning Ltd to design, build and supply the perfect solution.

Rushden Lakes is the UK’s first shopping centre of its kind, combining a superior shopping experience together with the tranquillity of a nature reserve.

Project consultants Downing Blunt specified that the project would be BREEAM Excellent. BREEAM is probably the world’s leading sustainability assessment method. It provides third party certification of an asset’s environmental, social and economic sustainability performance and encourages continuous performance improvement and innovation by setting and assessing against a broad range of scientifically rigorous requirements that go beyond current regulations and practice.

Weatherite responded to the challenge by designing, building and supplying fully packaged Displacement Ventilation Air Handling Units with DX cooling, low NOx gas fired burners (to reduce peak flame temperature and restrict oxygen availability and exposure at peak temperature) and refrigerant leak detection systems. Not only did Weatherite prove to offer  the best technical solution, in a competitive tender they also delivered the most competitive price.

Refrigerant leak detection has become an increasingly important requirement in many systems supplied by Weatherite, both because of the F-Gas Regulations and because quick identification of refrigerant gas leaks minimise the cost of having to replace lost (and increasingly more expensive) refrigerant gases.