26 July 2021
An historic listed building in Dublin has been refurbished to provide 32 warm and comfortable residential units for Respond Housing, one of Ireland’s leading housing agency. The restoration of Number 1 Mountjoy Square follows a fire that caused substantial damage in 2017. Built by Luke Gardiner, Lord Mountjoy, from 1790 and completed around 1810, Mountjoy Square has been home to many of Dublin’s prominent playwrights, authors and actors, including Seán O'Casey, James Joyce and WB Yeats.
Heating and hot water equipment for the local heat network at 1 Mountjoy Square was supplied by Baxi Potterton Myson. The centralised boiler plant room consists of three Potterton Sirius three wall hung 90kW stainless steel boilers installed in a cascade. This supplies heating and hot water to individual apartments via Heatrae Sadia Hi-Max heat interface units installed in each one to control and meter the occupant’s specific heating and hot water requirements.
The Potterton Sirius three wall hung boiler is available in outputs up to 150kW, all with the same compact footprint, and lightweight stainless steel heat exchanger for reliable and energy efficient heat transfer. It has a gross seasonal efficiency of up to 97.3%, best-in-class low NOx and its wide modulation ration of 9:1 reduces constant on/off cycling to help save energy.
The Potterton Sirius WH Cascade can accommodate from two to six boilers up to a total of 700kW. Omega-Flex Trac-pipe is used for gas pipework and all pipe fittings have quick and easy jointing, to save time and effort. It comes with a Class A primary circulator pump. The Hydraulic System Manager option acts as a low loss header, dirt separator, magnetic filter, air separator and flow velocity manager. This removes air, dirt and metal to ensure clean system water and prevent noise.
The Hi-Max Instant ID heat interface unit from Heatrae Sadia is designed to provide both central heating and domestic hot water to dwellings which are served by either a district heating scheme or a centralised boiler system. It has two plate heat exchangers - one for the hot water, and one for the apartment heating system. The use of Pressure Independent Control Valves (PICV) and Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controls maximises energy efficiency and stabilises the heat output. By ensuring the primary return temperatures going back to the district heating system are low, it operates highly efficiently. It is compact enough to fit in a standard kitchen cupboard and because there is no need for a boiler flue or annual gas safe service required, the Hi-Max is the perfect solution for district heating in multi-occupancy buildings.
Richard Louth, Commercial Specification Sales Manager at Baxi Potterton Myson and Ian Robinson, Multi Occupancy Sales Director, Heatrae Sadia, worked closely with the design team and worked closely with the design team and Shane Connors of Smart Style Renewables to support the delivery, installation and setup of the heating system. “We are very pleased with the performance of the equipment used on this listed building,” said Shane. “The Hi-Max units are producing exceptional efficient heat transfer. This is our first time using this product and hopefully we will get a change to use again,” he concluded.
The refurbishment project was overseen by Ted Carroll, of Douglas Carroll& Associates of Waterford City, consulting engineer, and construction work and refurbishment were carried out by Blacklough Construction, Kilkenny. Products were supplied through DPL Group Ltd.