Air conditioning and heating systems from Daikin UK are helping to keep air ambulance helicopters airborne across Essex and Hertfordshire.
The new Essex and Herts Air Ambulance Trust (EHAAT) head office in the Business Centre at Earls Colne Business Park, near Colchester, has a range of Daikin VRV, Split and Sky Air systems for climate control. A Daikin Altherma Low Temperature heat pump provides domestic hot water.
The Daikin systems provide a comfortable working environment for the Trust’s 30-strong support staff whose behind-the-scenes efforts ensure the vital life-saving service can continue to remain operational 365 days a year. EHAAT is a Charity that depends entirely on business and public support.
EHAAT occupies 500m2 of a 680m2 block, newly built on the edge of a World War 2 airfield in Essex. The Trust’s section includes general offices, meeting rooms, staff room and an IT server room.
The Daikin systems were installed by appropriately named By-Air Conditioning of Colchester.
By-Air project manager David Newman says: “The main system has two VRV IV Heat Recovery condensing units which deliver a total of 73.5kW of heating. Indoors are nine wall-mounted fan coil units in various capacities from 1.9kW to 4kW and seven Roundflow cassettes from 4kW to10kW.
“The Split and Sky Air systems provide heating and cooling for the smaller rooms, including the server room, which is cooling only.
All the systems are individually controlled by wired remote controllers which are easy to use and offer energy saving functions.
The Daikin Altherma LT heat pump is a shared system, providing DHW to the EHAAT offices and the adjoining offices.
Daikin systems were specified for the new development on the strength of a positive experience with Daikin equipment elsewhere in the business park, says Bob Ely, spokesman for the developer, E Hobbs Farms.
He says the Business Centre is the latest phase of the airfield redevelopment, which began in 1965 when Eric Hobbs acquired the 450 acre site, initially for farming.
“Development of the Earls Colne Business Park began in 1980. It now occupies about 40 acres of the site. The 18- and 9-hole golf courses, clubhouse and driving range occupy another 300 acres. The remainder includes the remaining active runway, roadways, grassland and wooded areas,” he says.
EHAAT’s new building is half a mile from the Trust’s hangar and Visitors’ Centre beside the remaining runway at Earls Colne airfield, where one of its two twin-engined MD902 Explorer helicopters is based. The other is based 26 miles away at North Weald airfield. Both aircraft fly on average two missions a day, serving Essex, Hertfordshire and surrounding areas.
Each Air Ambulance Team consists of a highly skilled pilot, a pre-hospital care doctor and a critical care paramedic who can be rushed to the scene of an incident with life-saving support equipment to deliver advanced clinical care that is normally only found in a hospital emergency department.
The EHAAT aircraft can take off within minutes of an emergency call from the East of England Ambulance Service Trust Critical Care Desk at Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford. Flying at up to 150mph, they can reach the most distant parts of the counties in 16 minutes.
