Modern Building Services

20 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES NOVEMBER 2022 FEATURE SMART BUILDINGS T here is never a quiet or easy time to take over as Prime Minister, as any previous inhabitant of No. 10 will tell you. Much of Boris Johnson’s time as the UK’s leader was dominated largely by the fallout from Brexit, the war in Ukraine and of course Covid. Opinions on how successful he was with any of these will depend on who you ask - but that is not a debate for this article. Liz Truss had been in the job for a matter of days when we learned of the very sad news about the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, our longest-reigning monarch. Before that era-defining event, there was much talk of how the Government would aim to tackle the cost of living crisis, with energy bills predicted to soar as we moved into winter and many households and businesses extremely worried about how they are going to cope. While for many heating their homes over the winter is amajor concern now, in the summer, as temperatures hit 40°C in parts of the country the talk was more around keeping our buildings cool and ensuring commercial buildings remained comfortable places to work. In the extreme heat, there weremany cases in which businesses asked some employees to work fromhome where possible tomake conditions more bearable in their workspaces. Flexible working has of course become a lot more widespread since the Covid outbreak as lockdown proved that employers and employees could carry on functioning effectively while working fromhome. The adoption of online meeting platforms such as Zoomand Teams meant important discussions could still take place without the need tomeet up in person and onlinemeetings have becomemore common as we are perhaps waking up to the fact that driving to a meeting is neither environmentally friendly nor financially justifiable in many cases. However, those among us who have become accustomed to working fromhome on a regular basis may suddenly find a return to the officemore appealing thanks to the aforementioned rising energy bills! This brings us back to the issue of making our workplaces comfortable for their occupants. This can create internal problems for workplace bosses who have an almost impossible task of keeping all of their staff happy and comfortable. In some circumstances, individuals might make small alterations to their own personal workspace to improve their comfort. This might be as simple as having their own plug-in heater under their desk to keep warm if the building’s heating system is not providing enough warmth, or taping over air vents if the air conditioning is too cold. These will of course create control havoc and energy waste, not to mention potential safety concerns. Details like these should be checked regularly – for example as soon as the weather turns cooler the vents that are now producing warm air will not be as effective if they are partially covered. With one of the hottest summers on record behind us and the country in the middle of a cost of living crisis, Graeme Rees , President of the Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA), discusses the increasing value of smart buildings in making our buildings both comfortable to occupy andmore energy efficient. Smart buildings for a new era