Complete drainage solution for new hospital

Saint Gobain PAM is supplying a complete above ground sanitary soil and internal rainwater drainage system for the new £429 million Royal Liverpool University hospital in Liverpool.

The new purpose built hospital will have 23 wards with 646 single bedrooms and 18 operating theatres. Each patient will have a single bedroom with ensuite facilities making it the largest all single room hospital in England and Wales when it is completed.

Says Malcolm Atherton, Public Health Design Engineer at Hoare Lea, Manchester: “We prefer using Saint Gobain PAM’s cast iron Ensign Soil system because of its superior acoustic performance and fire safety when compared to other pipe materials, especially in a hospital environment. Patient comfort and safety are both top priorities for hospitals.

“It is also durable and designed to last the lifetime of the hospital with minimal maintenance and is resistant to any possible damage whether accidental or deliberate.”

In addition to the Ensign Soil drainage system, the company is also supplying products from its new Vortx range including plant gullies, shower drains and roof outlets, ductile iron pipe-fittings for the pump drainage systems and grip collars which are fitted to ductile iron couplings to provide higher-pressure drainage applications for sensitive drainage areas.

Says Richard Smith, sales engineer for Saint Gobain PAM: “We have a wider range of products and fittings than other suppliers which for an application as diverse as this is vital. As a UK manufacturer we can also meet the project’s supply needs and deal with any unusual specifications promptly.

“An example of this is with the shower drains for level 4 of the building, which had to be supplied with various different spigot lengths already fitted to them, in order to speed up installation time. These spigots could be up to 2.8 metres in length as they had to pass through a concrete beams of different depths and then simply push straight into the connection below.”

The new hospital is due to be completed in 2017 and the main contractor for the build is Carillion.