Passivent aids school's Very Good BREEAM rating

Sustainable strategies supplied by Passivent have helped attain a Very Good BREEAM assessment and improve health and wellbeing for pupils at a West Sussex school.

West Sussex County Council contracted W Stirland to design and build eight new classrooms and a school library for Durrington Middle School in Worthing, to provide compliant facilities for the school's pupils.

The project was designed to the principles of achieving 'very good' under the BREEAM standard, in line with Council policy for best practice in sustainable development, and complied with appropriate building regulations, in particularly Part L (conservation of fuel and power).

Five Passivent Airscoop natural ventilation units were installed and linked to a zone temperature and CO2 control panel.

10 x 530mm Sunscoop tubular rooflights with light attenuating dampers were installed across the roof of the single-storey development.

The natural ventilation and natural daylight have helped the facilities achieve the ratings required in initial assessment to the BREEAM standard, under both Energy and Health and Wellbeing criteria.

The Passivent Airscoop uses a roof mounted terminal divided diagonally into four chambers.

Wind from any direction is channelled down through the windward chambers into the building at low velocity, and displacing the warm, used air out through the leeward chambers.

The system optimises lifetime costs, by harnessing natural variations in air pressure and temperature to function, using minimal electricity without fans and associated ongoing maintenance issues and costs.

The Passivent control panel enables the ventilation and air quality to be finitely controlled, to ensure appropriate levels of air flow to maintain a comfortable, fresh environment, and without the potentially distracting noise of fans turning on and off.

The Passivent Sunscoop tubular rooflights form one element of Passivent's range of natural lighting solutions for schools.

The Sunscoops optimise natural light in darker areas, catching daylight through a roof-mounted glazed dome and reflecting it down highly silvered tubing into the room below, providing diffused daylight without solar glare.

The light attenuating dampers fitted at Durrington enable teaching staff to control the amount of daylight into the teaching area as required.

Research by the SILSOE Institute shows that 530mm dia Sunscoop yields up to eight times more light than a standard single 60W bulb (13w low energy lamp), without any energy consumption.

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