Fulton Boiler Works has supplied four prefabricated heating and hot water plant rooms to Wetherby HMYOI, to provide cover for a central boiler plant decommissioning and decentralisation programme

Fulton Boiler Works has supplied four prefabricated heating and hot water plant rooms to Her Majesty's Young Offenders Institution (HMYOI) at Wetherby, to initially provide cover for a central boiler plant decommissioning and decentralisation programme. HMYOI Wetherby offers training to 15 to 17 year olds committed by the courts to provide constructive regimes that address offending behaviour, improve educational and work skills and promote law abiding behaviour in custody and after release. As the site is a secure establishment, it was decided to prefabricate the plant rooms at the Fulton factory in Bristol to minimise on-site work and disruption during commissioning.

Working closely with the Wetherby site manager, the Fulton design team developed an engineering specification in just one week that met the requirements of the institution.

'Plant rooms were required at four different locations, each for a different application.' explains Gordon Bareham at Fulton: 'The different applications meant that each plant room required two boilers, each meeting a minimum of 60% full load'.

Each plant room also housed plate heat exchangers for the hot water system load, pressurisation sets and all associated control and safety equipment.

Three of the plant rooms also included integral oil storage tanks.

As space was restricted, the physical size of the plant rooms had to be kept to a minimum.

The use of the latest Fulton CAD system helped to locate the integrated components in the best possible positions for the small footprint and for interconnecting M and E services.

Gordon Bareham explains that this type of bespoke, turnkey project has become a major part of the Fulton business over the past few years and the many advantages of off-site fabrication were clearly demonstrated during this project.

He adds that the use of high quality equipment that is factory-built with a minimum of site work was particularly important for a project such as HMYOI Wetherby.

Having completed the design process by the end of November 2005, the next time-critical task for Fulton was to deliver two completed plant rooms by the end of January and two by mid-February.

A build programme was put in place over the Christmas and New Year periods to achieve the schedule, with the plant rooms being commissioned and operational in time.

Commenting for HMYOI Wetherby, the site manager says: 'We are delighted with the efforts of the Fulton team and the plant rooms they have developed and commissioned for us.

The quality of the Fulton products and service has been the lynchpin in achieving this project's goals and their experience and skills in boiler design and off-site fabrication ensured that we had the project completed in time'.

He adds that the four plant rooms were initially supplied as a temporary measure, but proved so reliable and efficient that they have now been adopted as permanent fixtures.