Climate Control System in Belgravia - London
Introduction
As professional designers and installers of home automation AVITHA was invited to a premium luxury, seven floors, 22 rooms flat complex in Belgravia, London. The client required the installation of a highly specialized climate control system which could be remotely monitored and controlled throughout the structure.
AVITHA was called in to design a complete system which would cater to the entire building. It required the use of several different brands and technologies tied together to overcome the challenge.
Project brief
The goal for AVITHA was to Design, supply, install and monitor an HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and AC) control system. It required us to modernize many aspects of the existing system. The system that needed to be controlled included 15 Daikin AC zones, 3 fireplaces and 22 Honeywell Wet Underfloor Heating Zones.
However, for the system to run as planned some issues had to be fixed to accommodate the design for an automated solution. Top on AVITHA’s list was the AC system. The return air from the system meant at the AC was providing the wrong temperature readings. A poorly designed air routing system meant that the sensors were tricked into showing incorrect temperatures. Fixing it required adding thimble sensors. The sensors would gather the right temperature from each zone throughout the building.
The next step was to automate all manual controls for the heating and the AC system. The old system required that users set the temperature manually. When automation was applied, the system only needed to know the highest and lowest temperature values within a space after which it would maintain the temperature at all times.
The client also had traditional fireplaces for which controls had to be added. A control panel was added to the boiler room, pumps, boilers, etc. This made it possible to get more heating when required
All of the controls had to tie directly into the Savant App and remote controls. Now with the Savant home automation system in place, all of those controls had to be integrated into it.
HVAC automation with SAVANT system by AVITHA.
Brands used
Brands used
Technical Overview
As mentioned above upgrading from what was a conventional HVAC system required a number of steps. Each step also included modernization and automation of what was otherwise manually done. However, to ensure that air readings were precise across all flats 22 Honeywell Thimble sensors had to be installed (one for each zone). Their installation required:
– Chiseling the wall to run cabling from each sensor to its FCU (Fan Coil Unit) and every heating thermostat.
– Required safety and protection on the site which require a lot of additional work to protect.
– Required professional redecorate after the cables. It entailed filling up all channels made for cabling and repainting over it.
Additionally, the following items also had to be installed to upgrade the existing HVAC systems:
– 22 Honeywell Controlled Actuators installed in the manifolds to control the opening and closing of valves on pipes to allow hot water to run through the pipes under the floor.
– 7 pieces of Honeywell Wiring center to control power in the actuators.
– 7 Honeywell Touchscreens to work as an interface for all heating temperature readings and control of actuators to TCP (transmission control protocol).
– 9x North controllers connected to all the Honeywell touchscreens and Daikin touchscreens were designed to work with and be understood by Savant. Each North controller interfaces with 1 Honeywell Touchscreen, or the Daikin Touchscreen or the Boiler room Control Panel.
– 3 Savant fireplace controllers.
– 1 Savant system (AVITHA previously installed this on the property).
– 1 Control Panel to control boiler, pumps, etc.
– Ran fireproof CAT data cables through all fireplaces from Savant controllers to fireplace controllers.
– Replaced old thermostats with new ones.
Challenges & Innovations
The primary challenge of the project was to integrate old-school manual heating systems like the fireplace, boiler, etc. into an automated system which could be remotely controlled. Part of the challenge was to fix the AC system which was giving the wrong temperature readings by placing Thimble Sensors to compensate for the incorrect readings.
A feature was added to the system so if the temperature plunges abnormally it would automatically run hot water through building pipes to keep them from getting frozen.
Another feature is that we set air conditioners in a way so that they can be used to boost heating system when it is required, they can quickly heat a zone and then heating can be maintained by the wet underfloor heating system which takes longer to initiate. This way we were able to achieve the desired temperature quickly.
We designed the system so that it would perform automatically when the temperature was set at a certain threshold. That means it will continue to maintain a comfortable temperature.
The client has lauded AVITHA’s work when it comes to providing a long-term automated solution for the entire building. The solution works in conjunction with the building’s HVAC system providing efficiency and remote functionality across the building.