09-11-2004
City centre space for businesses is at a premium. With legislation encouraging developers to build on brownfield sites the trend is to build up rather than out. From a catering perspective this offers wonderful opportunities to seat customers in restaurants with fantastic vistas. Ensuring that you meet environmental standards and building regulations when your kitchens are so far off the ground can be a challenge particularly with disposal of waste and grease going to drain. So how do the kitchens on the 37th floor of Swiss Re’s new London headquarters building cope?30 St Mary Axe has just opened its restaurant at the top of its 40 story building. Kitchens on levels 37 to 39 service a tenant restaurant on floor 39 and private dining rooms on floor 38. As diners enjoy the food produced by executive chef Richard Corrigan and resident head chef Brian Hughson they can be safe in the knowledge that this building is. The environment was high on the agenda when architects Foster and Partners designed the building. Hilson Moran Partnership took on the challenge of delivering this design and making it one of the most efficient buildings to run, incorporating innovative technology within its distinctive external curvilinear glass and steel clad form. Hilson MoranA?a??a??s brief included assisting with the development of early environmental concepts through to the full design of M&E systems, building management systems, fire protection and public health systems. So how do you control grease going to drain from a restaurant close to 180m above ground?
Obviously, cooking oils are disposed of in bulk by licensed carriers but light oils from washing pots, pans, crockery and cutlery are discharged to drain. Nowadays, legislation dictates that hot food producing kitchens must have A?a??E?an adequate means of grease removalA?a??a?? in place to prevent grease exiting the kitchen, building up in the sewers and causing problems.
However, restaurant owners often regard a conventional grease trap as a necessary evil, perceiving them to be expensive to operate and requiring continual maintenance. Larger buildings use expensive grease interceptors located outside the building in addition to internal grease traps. The use of an interceptor or grease trap also requires attention to maintenance. This can be costly both in terms of removal of grease collected and the inconvenience associated with it.
Martin Murphy, project associate at Hilson Moran Partnership was conscious of the practicalities of maintaining and emptying fat traps servicing the kitchens in 30 St Mary Axe. A?a??A?How do you empty a grease trap on the 37th floor? You donA?a??a??t! You simply donA?a??a??t use a grease trap; there are more advanced ways of treating light grease that is washed down the drain during normal kitchen operations. We used a system called the Grease Guzzler that is a maintenance-free automated system,A?a??A? said Mike Barnett, HMPA?a??a??s Public Health Engineer who specified the system after using it successfully on other projects. A?a??A?The Grease Guzzler is a system that doses the drains with harmless grease loving micro-organisms that eat the grease in the pipes. We felt it was appropriate to adopt a biotechnology solution to the problem of grease control in such an environmentally progressive building,A?a??A? said Mike.
Systems such as the Grease Guzzler have made opening restaurants on the top floor of tall buildings less of a headache from a building services perspective. A?a??A?Without a system like the Grease Guzzler a contractor would need to be engaged on a commercial basis by the kitchens to remove the grease from a fat trap and carry it away. The grease trap would need to be external to the building but within a reasonable distance of the kitchen. This could spoil the aesthetics of the buildingA?a??a??s faA?A?ade because an underground fat trap would be ineffective,A?a??A? confirms Martin. A?a??A?The inconvenience of maintaining the grease trap in addition to the cost would be high. This would include potential disruption to the working environment, mess and bad odours.A?a??A?
The maintenance issue is important and was a prime consideration for using the Grease Guzzler. The limited holding capacity of a grease trap means it needs emptying regularly. There is no such requirement with the pipe dosing principle the Grease Guzzler adopts. The Grease Guzzler replaces a need for a grease trap, and any associated maintenance, being compliant with Part H of the Building regulations as a stand-alone grease removal system.
It employs patented biotechnology to completely degrade grease in commercial drains. Installed discretely on the kitchen wall the unit takes up no valuable floorspace. Every twenty four hours it releases a unique bacterial cleaning solution into the drain. This is prepared and developed within the unit from a concentrated ‘bio-fluid’ formulation. The patented pre-activation process ensures the bacteria are ready to start tackling the grease as soon as they enter the drain. A?a??A?The activation process is key to the success of the system,A?a??A? explains Edward Palin of Watling Hope who installed the system. A?a??A?By activating and incubating the micro-organisms in a medium of water prior to releasing them we are able to generate 3.5 litres of solution from just 100ml of concentrate. This enables us to deliver a large quantity of active grease degrading fluid into the drainage system each and every nightA?a??A?
The dosing of the bio-fluid occurs automatically and is timed so that the fluid has the maximum amount of time to degrade any grease in the drains before the kitchen begins operating again. The appeal of the Grease Guzzler system lies in its demonstrated success in other catering outlets, its reliability and importantly the elimination of any maintenance by the users. A Watling Hope engineer services the unit, topping up bio-fluid, every quarter.
30 St. Mary Axe is an exceptional workplace in the heart of the City. It is both iconic and functional setting a new benchmark for what can be achieved in sustainable development. As environmental technology moves forward it is becoming increasingly possible to reduce environmental impact. In todayA?a??a??s modern developments, traditional grease-traps are seen as ancient technology, with systems such as the Grease Guzzler providing a practical solution to grease treatment when you are 37 storeys above the ground.
For further information, please contact:
WATLING HOPE WASTEWATER ENGINEERING
1 Goldicote Business Park
Stratford-upon-Avon
Warwickshire
CV37 7NL
United Kingdom
Tel: 01789 740757