ADEY provides heating protection for UCL

A new working partnership between Europe’s leading water treatment manufacturer for the HVAC industry, ADEY and University College London (UCL) will ensure that the heating systems in the university’s significant portfolio of properties across London are properly protected.

Ranked as the seventh largest in the world and the joint second largest university in the UK, UCL owns a comprehensive collection of 422 buildings, including academic sites, research laboratories, student accommodation and energy centres.

In London alone, this translates into 320 boilers which underwent a huge and complex replacement programme last year.

Protecting these boilers is a big and ongoing priority for the facilities team, given what they serve and the criticality of them is paramount, so UCL turned to ADEY’s MagnaClean Commercial filters to protect the investment.

“In the past we have used various – unsuccessful - methods against a build-up of damaging black iron oxide sludge, and we’ve had problems with cracked casing and heat exchangers due to poor water treatment. The systems are mostly closed and equally varied so there is no option to use chemicals,” explains Dayle, UCL Building Services Manager.

“Our priority is to ensure that the new boilers we’ve installed are well protected, and the wider system is cleaned and maintained to prolong the life of the existing boilers. Increasing energy efficiency is also important to uphold our ISO 4001 certification and Green Apple Environment Award.”

“This is a complex yet exciting new venture,” says ADEY Area Sales Manager, Barry Wright. “Dayle and his team have a huge job maintaining such a diverse range of systems and boilers, from 35kw to 450kw.

ADEY has worked with them to initially prioritise certain buildings and install 30 MagnaClean Commercial filters, ranging in size from 2” to 6”. These will ensure that the magnetite sludge which is plaguing these systems is collected and removed, protecting them and saving time and money on expensive repairs in the process.”