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L&Q’s £800m Acton Gardens regeneration scheme will deliver 3,400 new homes over 26 phases, of which 50% will be for either social rent or intermediate home ownership. The 18-year project is transforming the former South Acton Estate in Ealing, with state-of-the-art community facilities and public spaces. Vital Energi provide the Operation and Maintenance services for the completed 11 phases, and it was whilst undertaking these duties we found that the material used during the original install caused an excessive number of leaks within the risers, laterals, and properties at Acton Gardens phase 1, which compromised the safety of the residents. L&Q instructed Vital Energi to replace the plastic pipework with copper pipework (crimped) in the fully occupied site to improve user comfort and better safeguard its residents, which would also improve the performance of the low temperature hot water heating system across the six blocks that make up phase 1.
We have provided Operation & Maintenance services since 2018 for all completed phases at Acton Gardens, from 1 through to 9.1. The key assets that have been installed include 6 energy centres, 9 thermal stores, 12 CHPs, 55 modular gas boilers, 1,532 HIUs, secondary heating systems within the residential properties, risers and laterals pipework, secondary pipework, and Building Management Systems. We provide 24/7/365 cover, with a response time of 4 hours for emergencies.
We have a team of O&M Engineers dedicated to the Acton Gardens contract who complete the planned maintenance in line with the Annual Maintenance Programme and respond to reactive call outs as they are received by our Customer Service Centre.
We proactively monitor and service the assets within the Energy Centres and networks, which we maintain through periodic inspections that allow us to pre-empt maintenance work. The Annual Maintenance Programme schedules all planned inspections and maintenance visits throughout the year, carried out in accordance with SFG20 published by BESA and in line with all legislative requirements.
Using webfleet TomTom to accurately track our engineer’s locations we provide the client and residents with up to date ETA for our engineers on-site and helps with managing our day to day O&M resource.
We have procedures in place to ensure minimum disruption when entering people’s homes. Our engineers wear full uniform and display their ID badges to preserve security, and our vehicles are also clearly recognisable to prevent bogus callers. We adhere to the scheme-specific arrangements, such as password and code access systems, and comply with all Covid-safe working practices.
Using the data and information we collect, we are able to proactively monitor trends which are fed back to L&Q to help support the design of further phases.