What we do, how we do it and why…
We‘re helping construction build better, by being the UK’s leading provider of sustainable water, climate and ventilation management solutions for the built environment.
Sustainability is at the heart of how we run our businesses, ensuring we have the most talented, empowered, and diverse people focusing their talents on our innovation, recycling, carbon reduction and digitisation capabilities.
Increased, unexpected and more frequent weather events are testing the limits of conventional drainage and sewage. Adapting to climate change will require innovative flood water drainage systems better suited to a warmer and wetter world.
Population growth has led to rapid growth and concretisation of our cities, compromising more of our urban spaces. Coupled with the impact of climate change, our cities are now suffering from Urban Heat Island effect, increased surface water runoff and a reduction in green spaces. Recognising the need to green our cities to make the places we work, live and play resilient and healthy, provides additional opportunities for more sophisticated solutions and packages which address drainage, carbon, and biodiversity resilience.
Now more than ever the issue of air quality and air pollution dominates public concern and drives Government policy. Covid-19 has only exacerbated the public health issue increasing the relevance of ventilation and airflow management as well as virus eradication. As the sector looks to improve indoor air quality to create healthy and breathable environments, it will look to the supply chain for those innovative solutions.
Climate change is one of – or possibly the biggest – environmental crisis facing our world. The built environment and its support sectors play a major role in the UK’s carbon footprint. We not only have an opportunity in reducing the carbon impact of our customers through our practices but also through the product technologies we develop. As the sector moves away from gas boilers to low energy/carbon heat sources at lower temperatures, it opens opportunities in specific application for us to capitalise.
Our legacy material substitution drivers remain as strong as ever. Legacy materials (copper, steel, cast iron, concrete, clay) represent 42% of our markets in our core historical and WMS segments providing headroom and growth tailwind.
Given the international nature of our growth drivers, many of our solutions are attractive in overseas markets. We see opportunities to serve these needs via export models or cooperation with local partners. Although we remain focused primarily on UK opportunities where we can best leverage our commercial footprint, we foresee geographic reach continuing to be a growth driver.
Sustainability is core to our commercial strategy, driving innovation in both the products we create and how we run our business. Our sustainability framework underpins how we deliver our strategy and how we help create a more resilient planet, society, and business.
Water management systems, Polystorm and Permavoid supplied by Polypipe Civils and Green Urbanisation, were selected to protect a new £2.7M medical centre from flash floods.
Churchdown Surgery in Churchdown, Gloucestershire is 1,191sqm surgery which serves 20,000 patients, containing consulting rooms, training rooms, nurse treatment areas and a large car park. The village of Churchdown is prone to flooding. In 2007, Gloucestershire was hit by 78mm of rain in just 12 hours.
Polypipe Civils and Green Urbanisation along with consulting engineering firm EPG, and civil engineer NGB Cheltenham, had to deal with a water table that left only 130mm of cover in large hard landscaped areas, meaning a shallow attenuation system was required.
The final design incorporated a mixed product solution that included a Permavoid system for use beneath a large permeable paving car park and two Polystorm tanks utilising anti-floatation measures in soft landscape areas.
The permavoid system, seleted due to the high water table and high structural load capacity, comprised of 2,614 Permavoid cells, 150mm deep, delivering 138m3 of stormwater storage beneath the hard landscaping surface.
The project, based in rural Kent, comprised of three four-bedroom homes, each approximately 200m² in size, and required a heating solution which could work seamlessly with a ground source heat pump – a pump that would need to heat both the ground floor and first floor systems, something the owner was struggling to find.
Approaching Polypipe Building Products, the team worked closely with the owner, his builders and his plumber during the initial design of the comprehensive heating solution. Polypipe’s Overlay™ and Red Floor Panel solutions were suggested as Polypipe's Underfloor Heating systems work seamlessly with ground source heat pumps.
Polypipe's Overlay came with its own pump manifold and temperature regulators, which meant it was easy for those living in the homes to operate. Developed specifically to maximise comfort and offer ease of control for end users, Polypipe’s range of controls incorporates both dial and digital display thermostats that allow time control per room or per manifold as required, with all options available in either hardwired or RF (wireless) versions with the ability to time control up to four different manifolds from one single hand held unit.
Following the installation of the Overlay™ system to the first floor of the three properties, it was decided that each property would also benefit from OverlayTM in the annex above the garages. Designed to be used when family and friends visited, the installation of Overlay™ in the annex meant the space could be warm, comfortable and efficient all year round.
Elsewhere in the properties, a Solid Red Floor system was identified as the ideal underfloor heating system for the ground floors, which were solid and required cutting to size. An important benefit to using this system is that the pipe layout ensures heat output is consistent across the entire floor area whilst very easy to control.
These comprehensive solutions were also complemented by other energy-saving measures installed in the properties, including three 5000 litre rainwater harvesting system, also supplied by Polypipe.
Nuaire was chosen to supply axial and high-temperature ventilation solutions to two of the prestigious FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Stadiums.
These groundbreaking architectural achievements in Qatar have been designed and built to achieve a Gold Sustainability Building Certification us the US Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.
Nuaire was involved with two major stadiums being built specifically for the tournament, the state-of-the-art Qatar Foundation Stadium, with a capacity of 40,000 seats and the Al Janoub Stadium, with a capacity of just under 40,000 seats. FIFA™ expects a high standard from stadiums used in their World Cup so want to ensure comfortable playing and viewing conditions for players and football fans alike.
Central plant AHU's were decided as the best option, with Nuaire chosen to design and manufacture bespoke air handling units for the project. Every dimension on the roof was constrained, meaning Nuaire’s design team had to work in millimetre increments to ensure maximum air volume out of each AHU with a maximum height of just 2222mm.
Two bespoke AHU's were supplied, serving a total of 4.4m3 of fresh filtered air to the bedrooms. High efficiency thermal wheels provided maximum energy savings whilst superior unit construction ensured low breakout noise levels; safeguarding the acoustically sensitive bedrooms located near the AHU's.
