Birmingham Symphony Hall

The original Birmingham Symphony Hall was built in 1991 and played host to many iconic classical performances yet Performance Birmingham Ltd, the charitable trust which manages the Town hall and Symphony Hall, wanted to expand the space to create a permeable area to satisfy a diverse audience and cater for new artistic adventures.xx

Galiford Try were appointed as contractors to deliver a seamless integration between the old building and new foyer. The building has seen more than 8,000 sqft of new space created whilst a further 6,000 sqft of unused space re-developed into productive use. The new foyer now provides enhanced catering and hospitality space as well as a place for educational activities.

The particular challenge on this project for Manstal, M&E contractors, was to create an integrated plumbing system that succinctly delivered all services to the various areas at a consistent and efficient level of performance. In addition, the new system was to be integrated into the district heating system that also serviced the existing building.

Therefore, to ensure a consistent level of performance throughout the HVAC system, Manstal chose the new Pegler Proflow PIC Valve to manage the efficiency and flow rates. The revolutionary new Pressure Independent Control Valve (PICV), is designed to eliminate existing PICV heating and cooling system issues. The valves are supplied in bypass configuration meaning they can be installed and flushed (both forward and backward to BISRA recommended standards) at full bore. Ensuring the PICV mechanism is safely out of the way to support a more efficient flushing process. Once clean and ready to commission a simple rotation of the Proflow PICV head introduces the valve into the flow and rotates the bypass out of the way.

The Manstal team experienced significant time savings on the project in line with Pegler’s published data on the Proflow PICV. The data shows that a traditional installation method of just 1 unit, encompassing seven stages from installation to commissioning then lagging would take up to 70% longer than the four stage process using the Proflow PIC Valve. 

What Manstal said:

Matthew Rose, Manstal Project Manager commented:

“We are well aware of the quality of the Pegler brand and had no hesitation to use the Proflow PICV on such an iconic project. With the valves being supplied in a bypass configuration it meant that our time was reduced in preparing the valves for the flushing process and as the two circuits were flushed together, we were confident that any debris would easily pass through without effecting the new system.”