Extracts printed with thanks to the Carbon Trust
publication CTG005 Technology Guide

The Carbon Trust says:-

"Reducing energy use makes perfect business
sense; it saves money, enhances corporate
reputation and helps everyone in the fight
against climate change."

Compliance with the current Part L document of the Building Regulations and the associated SBEM calculation tool has led to a great deal of controversy. Despite all the Government’s wishes and intentions, the current Regulations are proving to be biased towards higher carbon dioxide emitting air conditioned buildings rather than naturally ventilated buildings.  

Dr. Martin Liddament, the former Head of the International Energy Agency’s Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre has undertaken a review of the current Building Regulation status. This confirms a serious anomaly in which it easier to achieve compliance using air conditioning, even for buildings in which natural ventilation will emit far less carbon dioxide. This is already impacting on the building industry, resulting in a negative impact on climate change goals. We are currently proposing to lobby Parliament with our observations and recommendations.

The document put together by Dr. Liddament has been discussed in detail by the CIBSE Nat Vent Group at their recent meeting and wherever possible, our concerns have been put forward to all necessary contacts and Heads of Department within the Government to alert to them to the difficulties that the present Regulations are causing.

In the meantime it is also important to draw attention to the wording in Approved Document L2A, which states that

“Approved Documents are intended to provide guidance for
some of the more common building situations.  However,
there may well be alternative ways of achieving compliance
with the requirements. Thus there is no obligation to adopt
any particular solution contained in an Approved Document if
you prefer to meet the relevant requirement in some other way”

This is clearly a rapidly moving situation, so we will be pleased to provide any further technical update to any interested parties.

As a result of “public demand” we now make our literature email service a standard feature on our website, as you can see from the chart right.  We also have a ‘button’ on the left-hand side of the screen on any category of product, so that you can always receive our literature by email.  In this day and age, although people always compliment us on our literature printed, email is instant, so we do hope that our many Clients will find this new service of assistance.

Our MD, Terry Payne, has a very unusual choice in pets, where even the swans come into the kitchen for breakfast!  However, this confrontation between the cat and the swan produced a rather spectacular result, since it is not clear as to who was most surprised, the cat or the swan!  But that’s what happens if you leave your French doors open!

The theme of this year’s party was “Hollywood comes to Monodraught!”  Jackie, our Sales Director, who hosted and organised the party, proved herself to be a wonderful Princess Leia and we had a wide range of Hollywood “stars” including Rambo, James Bond, and Supergirl.  There was a roast suckling pig on a barbecue spit for everyone to enjoy and the whole evening was blessed with beautiful weather, which helped the party go down really well.  John Dixon dressed as “The Mask” won the prize for the best outfit and all the partygoers went home very happy!

Some Architects do like to stretch their imagination when it comes to having a colourful roof scene!  This photo of Windcatchers installed at Rye Primary School, East Sussex, shows just eight of the 15 Windcatchers installed, all of which have different colours to present a most unusual and fascinating roof scene at this School.  The shape of the cappings is also unusual but this does perhaps demonstrate the very wide scope of design possibilities that Architects have, just as long as they maintain the same louvre profile that is unique to the Monodraught systems.  Monodraught have now completed more than 4,000 Windcatcher installations on Schools, with over 900 systems installed last year alone but we are glad that we can help Architects add to the colourful design of Schools combined with all the benefits of zero energy natural ventilation!

Everyone who has dealt with our Contracts Administration Team knows how hard they work, so they had a special treat over the Bank Holiday weekend driving four super cars around Austria for four days.  The line-up was a Ferrari 430 Spyder, Lamborghini Gallardo, Audi R8, and a Bentley Continental convertible!  Our Contracts Management Team are often working 12 hours a day, 6 – 7 days a week, which takes a very special quality, so this was a great opportunity to acknowledge their tremendous efforts!  The trip commenced at the Red Bull Motor Museum at Salzburg Airport and took in the amazing Grossglockner Pass, where snow is still 10ft deep!  The four day trip took in some very long, straight road tunnels, where the combined exhaust roar from the four cars was quite deafening.  Kitzbühel and St Johann also featured on the trip and the whole weekend was blessed with beautiful sunny weather, unlike the English Bank Holiday weekend!  Those taking part included Luigi, Paul, Stuart, James, and two Andys, and Terry.

Monodraught are currently installing literally hundreds of their SunPipes at the Lagoons Sales Centre in Dubai.  This is purported to be the largest purpose-built Sales Centre in the world and it is to promote the multi-billion Lagoons ‘City of the Future’ in Dubai.  As can be seen, this Sales Centre is a most ambitious Project creating thousands of pools of light using a most elaborate layout of ceiling terminations.

Such is the popularity of our commercial SunPipes that we have now put together a “Gallery” of the first 50 photographs of Projects around the world, since these all show the amazing transformation that takes place, when natural light is piped into a building through a SunPipe system.  Please click on the button above.  We will update this ‘rolling gallery’ of Commercial SunPipes whenever the opportunity arises.