Acorn Aluminium has won a multi-million pound contract to replace windows and doors at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre.
Starting on site this month [September], the window replacement programme is being delivered as part of a 15-year agreement between Nottingham University Hospital Trust and energy giant EOn.
The programme aims to cut carbon emissions and deliver energy savings of in excess of £2.8million a year by moving to low energy technologies, renewables and improving the thermal efficiency of buildings.
Acorn was appointed to the project by main contractor Willmott Dixon following a series of successful projects including Birmingham’s high profile Perry Barr Regeneration scheme.
Paul Stevens, Managing Director, Acorn Aluminium said: “The Queen’s Medical Centre is a landmark building but it was built over 40 years ago and it’s leaking energy.
“This includes single glazed ribbon windows at around 2m high, which wrap around each floor of each of the four main blocks.
“We’re going to replace all of them with ultra-energy efficient replacements achieving a u-value of around 1.3w/m2K.
“To give you an indication of the gains, that’s an uplift in energy efficiency from the current u-value of around four or five, and the glass will also have a really high G-value of something like 0.4, significantly reducing solar gain and lowering energy costs in cooling.”
In total the project includes the replacement of around 18,000m2 of windows and doors, working across the whole site and to up to six storeys.
Acorn is designing, manufacturing and installing replacement windows as part of the scheme, manufacturing them in RAL 9011 black in the energy efficient SPW600 System from Senior Architectural systems.
Paul continued: “It’s a living working hospital 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We’ve got to work around the trauma and high dependency units, the emergency centres, maternity wards, so the coordination with the hospital is going to be key.
“We have an advantage in that we’re local, we have a 33,000 sq ft factory that can cope with this scale of project but getting the coordination absolutely right is going to be so important to successful delivery.”
The Queens Medical Centre is part of the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the biggest and business acute trusts in England, Employing more than 14,500 people.
The site in Derby Road opened in 1977 and has more than 13000 beds. It’s also home to the University of Nottingham Medical and Nursing Schools.