Elta Selected For Eco School

A range of fans from the Building Services Division of Elta is helping a new Derbyshire School to maintain its position as one of the most energy-efficient buildings ever built by the Derbyshire County Council.

Herbert Strutt Primary School in Belper, Derbyshire can accommodate up to 210 pupils and from the outset was designed very much within the Government’s plans for future school buildings with energy efficiency and sustainability as a core focus.

The school features a number of green initiatives, including some of the more overt measures such as photovoltaic panels on the roof to generate electricity. Such readily visible methods not only save energy but also help to instil a green mentality in the pupils. However, one of the successes of the school is that it has looked beyond the more obvious environmental measures to a more holistic approach to energy efficiency which includes the vital role played by the heating, ventilating and air conditioning system.

Elta distributor, Fans & Spares of Nottingham, won the contract to supply the fans for the school’s HVAC system. The Elta units were specified, along with a series of controllers, room occupancy sensors, timers, switches and thermostats to which the fans were linked. This system ensured that rather than running constantly, the fans only operated in those rooms that are occupied, thereby providing significant energy savings. Sensors which monitor the temperature of a room also prevent the fans from extracting too much heat by automatically powering them down when a pre-defined temperature is reached. This again prevents energy wastage as there is no requirement for the room to be re-heated to achieve the desired temperature.

A total of 25 fans were fitted in the school, including 20 Jetflow SJ fans in various sizes. The Jetflow is one of the most extensive ranges of inline fans available, providing high performance in medium pressure systems through highly efficient, maintenance-free rotor motors and a robust, heavy gauge steel housing. Also supplied were two Multiflow SMC in-line mixed flow fans and three Quietflow SQS units – single fans which are acoustically lined to reduce breakout noise levels, a significant factor in certain areas of the school to remove any potential impact on the learning environment.

The holistic approach to energy efficiency adopted at the Herbert Strutt school is also demonstrated by other initiatives including the use of a geothermal heat pump which employs bore holes sunk some 40 metres down to capture the earth’s natural energy to warm the underfloor heating system, as well as holding tanks which collect rainwater which flushes the school’s toilets.

Phil Warner, Elta National Sales Manager, commented ” “We are increasingly, and quite rightly, seeing a focus on energy efficiency in buildings as sustainability in the construction process comes under scrutiny through documents such as Part L of the Building Regulations. This is particularly true in schools where the BSF initiative is making everybody involved consider how their products or services can help to move us towards the goal of zero carbon buildings by 2019.”

Elta is part of the £85 million Elta Group, a family of businesses with operations in six countries on four continents which, together with a network of international distributors, provides quality fans and related air movement equipment to customers worldwide.