Plumbing Africa April 2020 | Page 39

39 PROJECT The Village, Bramley The entrance to the project site at The Village, Bramley. By Eamonn Ryan EESCO was brought in to do the hot water system, for the seven blocks of both phases of a housing project called The Village in Bramley which is near completion. The project under review involves a 320kW heat pump, one of the largest EESCO has ever done. More people, more water, more saving EESCO (Elemental Energy) is a company whose core business is commercial heat pumps and hot and cold water reticulation. It is currently installing an indirect ‘district heating’ system at an affordable housing project called The Village in Bramley which is near completion. The biggest heat pump that it has manufactured and installed to date is a 500kW machine, while the current project under review involves a 320kW heat pump. Andrew Lowe of EESCO says, “The Village, Bramley, is a two-year project that has been developed in two phases with Phase 1 of approximately 180 units already complete (at the April 2020 Volume 26 I Number 02 time of the visit) and mostly rented out, and Phase 2 of 354 units under construction.” EESCO’s brief was to design and supply an energy efficient hot water system to supply 534 flats housing approximately 1 350 people. The design was to include hot water storage, heating system, pressure pumps and ring main feed to each flat, primarily using the municipal water mains. “Instead of putting in seven heat pumps and seven tanks – one for each block – we decided on a central plant which would distribute the hot water to each block via a ‘primary ring main’. The primary circuit exchanges heat with each www.plumbingafrica.co.za