Daikin VRV air conditioning systems are one of the attractions of a new luxury apartment development overlooking London’s River Thames.
The Kew Bridge complex, where three-bedroom apartments sell for €1.8m, offers spectacular views of Kew Palace and the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Nine separate Daikin VRV IV systems have been installed in Block D, the fourth and final phase of the 308-unit Kew Bridge project, which consists of 100 apartments split between Quayside House and Kew Wharf.
Andy Brown, project manager for Marlow Air Conditioning Services, says comfort cooling was installed to offset solar gain in all the Kew Wharf apartments and 50 of the Quayside House apartments with south and west aspects.
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With a combined total nominal cooling output of 717.8kW, the nine Block D systems consist of 18 VRV IV heat pumps from 8hp to 20hp, arranged singly or in groups of two and three to meet the design cooling loads of the apartments they serve.
The Daikin heat pumps were installed in a secure area against the west wall of the basement car park. Clive Owen, Senior Engineer at consultants DSSR, says the units are cooled by air that enters via the car park ramp, stating: “once the air has passed through the units, it is discharged through above ground louvres that are concealed within the landscaping features”.
Depending on the footprint, apartments have between two and five Daikin fan coil units and to meet the developers’ requirement for an ‘out of sight’ air conditioning solution, all the fan coil units are from the slim ducted range, which offers models from 1.7-7.1kW nominal cooling. The 200mm high compact units are installed above an area of dropped ceiling, typically in a passageway, and deliver cooled air either directly or through ductwork to grilles at ceiling height, but concealed by architectural detailing.
The Daikin fan coil units are individually controlled by hand-held Infra-red remote controllers, with sensors mounted out of sight in the ceiling detail and overall control of the Daikin VRV IV systems is via iTouch Managers, with Daikin’s Power Proportional Distribution software and bacnet gateway interfaces to the BMS.