Plant room questions answered

A packaged plant room is a complete plant room built and fitted out offsite: boilers or heat pumps, pumps, pipework, pressurisation, controls and electrics installed inside a steel-framed enclosure, tested in the workshop, then delivered to site and connected. It is also called a prefabricated plant room or packaged boiler house.

Typically the heat or cooling source, primary and secondary pumps, low-loss header or plate heat exchanger, pressurisation and expansion, water treatment, gas pipework and safety valve, flues, controls and BMS interface, lighting, small power and a distribution board, all in a ventilated, insulated enclosure. The exact schedule follows the duty and the specification.

They overlap. A containerised plant room uses a container-style enclosure. A packaged plant room uses a purpose-built steel frame and insulated cladding, sized to the plant rather than to a standard container, which usually gives better access for maintenance.

Yes. A packaged unit can be built while the old plant keeps running, then connected during a short planned shutdown. The old boiler house is freed for other uses.

Natural gas and LPG boilers, air and water source heat pumps, hybrid systems with boilers as peak or standby, and electric boilers. We are Gas Safe registered (621146) for the gas work.

When the plant is too large to transport as one piece, when the crane or access route limits the lift, or when the installation is phased. Modules are sized to UK road transport limits and joined on site.

Structural, weatherproofing and services joints are designed at the drawing stage. Pipework and cabling are made off at flanged or plug-in break points, so site work is limited and predictable.

An open steel frame carrying pre-assembled plant: pumps, heat exchangers, pressurisation, valves, pipework and controls. It is installed inside an existing plant room or building and connected at flanged break points.

Prefabricated chilled-water plant rooms, primary and secondary pump skids, plate heat exchanger skids for free cooling and heat recovery, technology cooling system (TCS) loops for liquid cooling, buffer vessels, pressurisation, water treatment and filtration. Chillers and dry coolers can be specified by us or supplied by others and integrated.

Yes. Redundancy is set at design stage: N+1 pumps and heat exchangers, dual headers or fully separate A and B systems, with isolation arranged so plant can be maintained without loss of cooling.

Yes. Pressure tests, functional tests of pumps, valves and controls, and points-to-points with the BMS can be witnessed in the workshop before delivery, ahead of site commissioning and integrated systems testing.

The heat or cooling load in kW or MW, redundancy, fuel or energy source and supply capacity, flow and return temperatures, any drawings or specification, the site address and access constraints, where the unit will stand, and the target programme.

Yes. Combicert Ltd services and repairs commercial boilers, gas installations and plant room equipment after handover.