The Brief
On the morning of Thursday 7th May, we received an urgent call from our client, A building services engineering company in London. They were enquiring on behalf of their client, in London. The gardens had suffered major boiler failure and were now unable to provide specially regulated heat to the endangered and protected botanical gardens.
The Objective
The client is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the “largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world”.
Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden, its living collections includes some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens.
The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London’s top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.
The gardens’ reputation was at stake and the ecological loss the gardens could have incurred was also great. Kew Gardens required an emergency boiler hire solution.
The Objective
The Site Manager required an emergency heating solution. The gardens had the added pressure of protecting the Lower Nursery, which holds some of the rarest species of plants with many almost extinct. The importance of ensuring the nursery continued to function fully could not be underestimated.
The client required a 1.5MW temporary boiler hire solution, to be delivered the next day. The client also requested the boiler to be installed and commissioned in the least disruptive location for the guests within the gardens’ grounds. Our primary objective was to ensure the protection of the endangered plant species and ensure the nursery could remain functional and open to the general public.
The Technical Part
Boiler Required:
1.5MW Packaged Boiler (Oil Fired)
Fuel Tank Required:
6000 Litre Bunded Fuel Tank
Connections and Hose Requirements:
Pipes – DN100 hose flange cons
Pipes – DN50 hose BSP cons
Power connection 32a, single phase commando 415v (red) Water supply 15mm plain end connection
Heras Fencing
Challenges and Obstacles
One of the biggest challenges our team faced was the location of where the boiler was scheduled to be landed. Our delivery vehicle had to avoid damaging the foliage and retain the high ecology of the grounds. Due to fact we were delivering a 1.5MW packaged boiler, (the largest boiler in our fleet) weighing approximately 6 tonnes, the sheer weight of the vehicle could have caused substantial damage. Our delivery driver expertly avoided any damage to the garden grounds.
How Ideal Heat Solutions Met the client’s Objectives
- Heating solution delivered within clients timescales
- Nursery can remain open and functional
- All contractors / third parties organised and informed
- Minimal disruption
- Fuel management
- Boiler landed in area with least amount of disruption.
- Clear details on what was required from I H S – connections, power, hose route
Outcome
The client was incredibly happy with the huge effort that Ideal Heat Solutions made to successfully organise, deliver and commission the boiler, in such a short space of time. In particular, the client was really impressed with our consistent communication throughout the whole process.
As a result of our efforts, the public continued to enjoy the beautiful botanical at Kew Gardens and the endangered species of plant life were provided the conditions to continue to thrive.