At the start of every refurbmishment project, there are a number of considerations that need to be made when it comes to the M&E design and installation that differ to the traditional new build.
Electrical Supply
As explained in our other blog, the requirement for heat pumps is on the up which in turn means that electrical requirements are likeley to increase. This is sometimes overlooked especially from a financial point of view as the cost of new supplies can get expensive!
Plant Rooms
Something that we see all of the time as M&E consultants is undersized plant rooms, this can be easily avoided by getting a clear understanding on how we want the building to operate when complete. With heat pumps replacing boilers, this can sometimes mean more plant will be required for the systems as well as ensuring there is enough access and maintenance clearance around the new plant.
As well as internally, if moving to heat pumps then external plant space is equally important as these will need to be located outside and preferebly out the way of foot traffic.
Water storage is another consideration, if the building is changing use from on office to an apartment block for example, it is likely that the overall building occupancy will change which in turn means that the size of the water storage could increase. Getting this correctly sized at the storage will save a lot of headaches down the line as these could take up a lot of space and reduce useable building footprint.
Ceiling Voids
With a fixed slab height, refurbishments can be tricky when introducing new technology and systems in to older buildings, especially when moving from natural ventilation with just openable windows to mechanical ventilation with some bulky units to squeeze in.
Depending on the build up of the floor plates, services can often be ran within joists to save space and increase the ceiling height as much as possible.
Noise
Acoustic reports are generally produced at the start of each project sometimes by the architect, but if not it is essential that your M&E consultant advises the client team that one is required.
Noise has a particular effect on ventilation. It’s quite often we see windows requested to be fixed shut by the acoustican which in term means mechanical ventilation will need to be introduced, which as mentioned above means larger equipment and larger ceiling voids.
