Repairing headaches in heritage buildings
Chris Boakes, Specification Sales Manager, discusses the challenges facing the costs of repairing historic buildings in England and how Viega press technology can help mitigate certain risks associated with renovation.
It’s estimated that nearly £10 billion is spent on the repair and maintenance of listed historic buildings in England, according to Historic England. That’s roughly 20 percent of all repair and maintenance output for the UK construction industry. This is a huge opportunity for contractors but comes with its own challenges.
For heritage buildings, the complexity and importance of repairs can be daunting. There are so many factors to take into account, from ensuring preservation for the long term through to maintaining the aesthetics and values of the original building.
Heritage building owners need to balance a fine line between repairing using traditional methods and using products which can guarantee the safety and security of the building for years to come.
Water and gas pipes are the perfect representation of this challenge. If existing pipework bursts from damage or needs updating to comply with modern health and safety standards, where do you start?
Minimising damage, maximising safety
As with any work on a listed building, planning permission is required before you can start. This even includes any work behind the walls such as hot water systems.
And behind the walls is where the challenges start. Where pipework in more modern buildings will be discretely chased into walls and hidden from view, there is no such opportunity in listed buildings where limiting disturbance to the fabric of the building is a top priority. For these projects, installation will need to be in full view on the surface of the wall and probably taking a longer path for the system.
When carrying out the installation, hot works are an immediate red flag. Historic England recommends hot works be avoided unless there is no alternative. Attributing many serious fires to this type of work, Historic England makes its stance very clear.
In this environment, the cold press technology from Viega has immediate attractions. Not only does this technology remove the need for hot works permits, it also completely eliminates the dangers from fire. Then there is the added benefit of not having to flush the system because of flux and solder entering the water.
The project to replace the hot and cold water systems in the historic Queen’s House, Greenwich is an example of exactly the type of project that cries out for a cold press system The Viega press connections used here eliminated all hot works, minimised time on site and provided an element of future proofing with the long life span associated with Viega engineering.
Fix and forget
Damages from poorly installed systems or blown off cost money but in listed buildings, where the structure and its contents can be irreplaceable, the loss is so much more than financial.
With this in mind, owners and contractors should look to a system which minimises the risk of accidental damage combined with evidence of long-lasting performance.
There is a body of opinion suggesting that press isn’t as secure as soldering or welding, but in my view this is almost always the result of fittings being missed off from pressing during installation.
To avoid any possibility of this happening, each Viega connection features the SC-Contur design which makes spotting any unpressed connections easy during testing and guarantees a secure installation.
Since is achieved through a ‘pressed twice in a single motion’ from using the Viega press tools ensures a rigid and robust connection. Then the second stage of error elimination is the leak path designed into all Viega connections. This design means that any unpressed connections leak obviously and immediately even when the water pressure through the pipes is very low – making them easy to identify. A third reassurance is that the guide path on all connections rules out any possibility of a misaligned installation or a damaged sealing element. Pressure testing can be done centrally, all at once, without the need for multiple tests for different pipe sizes.
We believe that press connections are offering something even more significant than money saving: peace of mind. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather invest in robust pipe connections than feel responsible for damage to a national treasure.
References:
https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/technical-advice/flooding-and-historic-buildings/
https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Repairing_historic_buildings
https://www.willmottdixon.co.uk/expertise/grade-ll-and-heritage