Murphy & Kelly delivers heavily serviced 60-bed community nursing unit for St Mary’s healthcare campus in Cork…
Mechanical services contractor Murphy & Kelly (Thomastown) Ltd delivered a rapid mechanical services installation for a 60-bed community nursing unit (CNU) at St Mary’s healthcare campus, Cork.
The newly built CNU, Heather House, provides both long and short stay accommodation for Co. Cork’s older residents. The building was expedited as part of the HSE’s emergency Covid-19 works.
Mechanical services installation consisted of the complete installation of water services, soils and waste drainage, air source heat pumps, gas boilers, gas water heaters, buffer vessels, mechanical heat recovery, air conditioning, M&E coordination and BMS controls.
The heating system is fed by two heat pumps into a buffer vessel with two gas boilers as backup also into a buffer. The two heat pumps run in a duty standby arrangement.
Each room has a digital thermostat with temperatures controlled by Modbus from the BMS system. Control of the heating via the LST radiators is through pressure independent control valves (PICVs) which are controlled by the addressable thermostat. Two gas fired water heaters feed the domestic hot water requirements, assisting the heat pump preheat buffer.
Each of the 60 bedrooms has a handbasin and also its own ensuite shower, basin and WC which is serviced by a Mitsubishi Lossnay heat recovery unit.
Murphy & Kelly is a family-owned, highly-skilled and well-resourced mechanical contractor with almost 40 years’ experience servicing large and small projects throughout Ireland.
Commenting on the project at St Mary’s CNU, Contracts Director, Dean Kelly said, “We worked closely with the main contractor MMD Construction and the M&E consultants Semple & McKillop on this design & build project to deliver a tight programme of works within six months.”
Complying with Covid-19 regulations meant the site team was split in order to mitigate against outbreaks. “We kept the crews completely separate,” said Dean.
“They ate their lunch separately, had separate materials storage facilities and obviously never worked in the same locations. If any one of our crew had Covid we’d only be losing half of our team due to self-isolation. We’d still be able to continue and meet our timelines and programme deadlines.”
As it was, the site avoided experiencing an outbreak during construction, “which is testament to the way in which MMD operated the site and the regimes they put in place to ensure a safe working environment for all involved,” said Dean.
In-house fabrication
“The ventilation on site was progressed quickly because we manufacture all of our own sheet metal ventilation systems at our factory in Thomastown, County Kilkenny,” commented Dean. “We have full control of manufacture of all our ventilation ductwork in-house.
“Our onsite day-to-day operations was led by Eoin Cody, as our site manager. My role as Contracts Director involved making sure everything was completed correctly and efficiently on a daily basis. Director Steven Kelly was responsible for estimating, purchasing and quality control and Denis Kelly, our Managing Director, oversaw the project in its entirety, to ensure everything was running correctly and that we were sticking to the highest of standard.
“The fact that the building was finished to such a high standard and within programme is testament to our tried and tested suppliers. We led them, but we all pulled together as a team to integrate our services to make sure everything was operating as it should.
“It’s a building that we’re proud to have been involved in and which was officially opened by An Taoiseach Micheal Martin. It’s a heavily serviced building with heat recovery in each bedroom and air source heat pumps providing renewable energy sources.
It’s the way of the future and it illustrates our company ethos of embracing change and combining it with our experience which has driven the constant growth of the company over the last number of years.
“Creating strong relationships with our clients is important and MMD construction has been a great company to work alongside. We look forward to continuing our long-standing project partnership with them.”
For the full feature, see Ireland’s Plumbing & Heating Magazine Issue 110 here.
T: +353 (0)56 7724294
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