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FEATURES
FEATURES
Plumbing for
laboratories
is all in the design
Laboratories provide the high-tech environments
researchers need to uncover ground-breaking medical
therapies, develop new products for industry and test
plumbing products to relevant standards.
By Eamonn Ryan
Successful laboratories are the result of
extensive planning, collaboration, and
coordination between the design team
and all impacted stakeholders, such as
plumbers.
Even the smallest detail, performed incorrectly,
can have a detrimental impact on lab function
and safety – so getting these spaces right for
the scientists working in them is critical.
Vollie Brink, a veteran design engineer of 65
years, says of the regulations, “It gives a generic
‘description’ of how the installed system must
perform in operation. As to how you comply,
there is a choice of three different methods,
which themselves are not regulations but rules.
By definition, a regulation is compulsory, and any
design must comply with it.”
He lists them:
• ‘Deem-to-satisfy’, which is the domain of
the plumber who must install in a manner
The difficulty faced by designers of laboratories
and healthcare facilities is that there are
no standards in force governing their
specifications. National Building Regulations
(NBR) say nothing about water other than
specific regulations relating to sanitary drainage
which are contained in Part P. There, the seven
regulations are general in intent, at a basic level
such as “If there is a sewer connection you will
connect to it.”
A typical design for a laboratory.
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October 2019 Volume 25 I Number 8