Designing Beyond Handover

A shower installation can be straightforward to specify, coordinate and install. But will it still be straightforward to inspect, test, isolate, maintain or recommission ten years after handover?

Many of the activities needed to manage a building safely and efficiently are operational, but the ability to carry them out can be determined much earlier. Access to services, the position of isolation points and the means of testing or flushing an installation are all influenced by decisions made during design and specification.

Horne pre-plumbed shower panels are designed with this longer-term requirement in mind. Accessible low-level servicing and isolation valves provide a practical interface between the installed shower and its ongoing management, facilitating isolation for maintenance, water sampling and flushing, as well as supply pressure and temperature testing and performance verification.

They can also simplify decommissioning and subsequent recommissioning where an outlet or facility is taken temporarily out of use.

What is happening beyond the visible outlet?

This becomes particularly important when considering the condition of the water system itself.

Microorganisms can attach to wetted surfaces and progressively develop into biofilm. Initial attachment may be reversible, but established cells can begin producing a slimy extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) matrix, forming microcolonies and eventually more complex three-dimensional communities.

As mature biofilm grows and protrudes further into the water flow, cells or clumps can detach under shear forces and other environmental influences, allowing material to be carried downstream and potentially colonise other surfaces.

Understanding this process helps explain why flushing should not always be considered simply as a means of replacing stagnant water.

Routine flushing provides water turnover. Elevated velocity (EV) flushing additionally increases the shear forces acting at the wetted pipe surface, helping to disturb and mobilise accumulated material and biofilm from local pipework.

From a designer’s perspective, the important point is that the effectiveness and practicality of future flushing can be influenced by the way the installation is configured and serviced. What may later appear to be a routine facilities-management task can therefore have its origins in decisions made years earlier.

Additional control where it’s needed

For applications requiring a further level of water-hygiene control, Horne -T4 and -T9 shower models incorporate the patented In-line Thermal Disinfection Unit (ILTDU). Using the existing >60°C system hot-water supply, the ILTDU enables targeted thermal disinfection of the mixed-water pathway through to the outlet.

This has particular relevance in healthcare environments, but the wider design principles apply wherever usage may fluctuate. Schools, leisure facilities, accommodation and other buildings can experience periods of low occupancy, seasonal closure or temporary shutdown – circumstances in which accessible servicing, effective flushing and straightforward recommissioning become especially valuable.

Designing beyond handover means considering not only how an installation will fit and function on day one, but how readily it can be managed throughout its service life.

Horne shower systems, technical information and specification resources are available online and via NBS Source.

www.horne.co.uk  |   01505 321455