In creating its new orang-utan enclosure, Chester Zoo wanted the ventilation to mirror air movement in the animals’ natural habitat of tropical rainforest, with air rising and blowing among the branches.
However, the system needed to be orang-utan proof. Gilberts’ solution, for contractor Crown House Technologies, was to create galvanized plenum boxes each housing 3no jet nozzles, the direction of which can be adjusted to vary the airflow to maintain a fresh atmosphere in the 1400+m3 enclosures.
Senior Technical Manager Roy Jones comments: So often, the customer needs a ventilation component that is maybe only a couple of mm different on a product, or needs a specific design to solve a problem.
With many suppliers, getting that made is a major issue. The part may be manufactured overseas, or produced en masse. There isn’t the expertise to hand to think outside the box and develop a practical solution. There isn’t the flexibility to quickly and easily arrange for a ‘one-off’.
But because we make all our grilles, louvres and terminals ourselves, from scratch, and have our own, in-house design, R&D and test facilities, we have the flexibility and capability to quickly and cost-effectively develop an individual solution.
