Overview
Twice a year we carry out an in-depth service of the natural ventilation roof-lights and the main atrium wind towers at Brighton Central Library.
The Problem
The library is a four storey atrium that is completely naturally ventilated using glazed modulating windows and roof-lights. During our last service we replaced all the motorised actuators on the glazed windows. The originals had been used daily for over fifteen years and had become corroded, the majority were still operational but the opening and closing rates had become slow and it could be seen that the operation was inconsistent.
The biggest concern is that should the actuators fail in the closed position it would prevent the units being used for smoke clearance in an emergency fire situation where they are used by the fire service to manually operate them for smoke clearance.
The Solution
Changing all the motors has provided a fully working smoke ventilation system that will be good for the next ten years at least.
Twice a year we also clean the large, glazed damper mounted in the base of each roof mounted wind tower. The location near the coast exposes the glazing to extreme coastal conditions that leaves salt crystal deposits on the glass, twice a year we use specialist access equipment to enter each tower and clean the glass and lubricate the motorised opening mechanism.
