Ringshall Grange, a stunning eight-bed listed manor house, has installed two Hounsfield Boilers oil-fired boilers to ensure its guests are kept warm. The manor house’s old 60kW oil boiler had started to show its age, the owner, Laura Ormerod, needed a very reliable new boiler that would not cause any maintenance issues for her or the guests. Laura turned to Kevin Brand of Brand Plumbing and Heating Limited and asked him for his recommendation.

Kevin says: “Hounsfield Boilers are renowned for their excellent quality, price and reliability plus they are very economical to run, so I didn’t hesitate to recommend these boilers to Ringshall Grange as I knew they would be up for the job! In fact, I have a Hounsfield Boiler in my own home as I know they’re the best.”

Scottish Widows has provided a £150m long term loan facility to The PRS REIT plc, the closed-ended real estate investment trust established to invest in new-build homes for the Private Rented Sector.

The new 25-year loan will be secured by a portfolio of 1,500 UK newly built private family rental homes.  It follows a £100m 15-year loan provided by Scottish Widows to The PRS REIT plc in 2018.

Whether it’s a log cabin or a dream summer house, getting started on building in your garden is an exciting time. But the last thing you want is a letter through your door telling you that your lovely new fixture isn’t allowed! So, before you set off, take a moment to get familiar with these legal requirements. This article will look at key legal points for building in a garden, and breakdown what each means in terms of building log cabins or summer houses.

WHAT: EarthCam’s new time-lapse plugin for their VR Site Tour App won first place as the “Most Practical” app in the 2019 RICOH THETA Dream and Build Contest. Since 1936, Ricoh has been an electronics powerhouse whose latest 360° reality capture cameras are consistently voted best-in-class by tech reviewers worldwide. The 2019 contest required developers to submit their custom apps for the Ricoh Z1 or THETA V 360° cameras and EarthCam’s plugin was honored as one of the top additions to their ubiquitous camera.

Sovereign View – an impressive riverside apartment block in Rotherhithe, East London – has received a complete facelift, thanks to the skills of the London-based refurbishment specialists Gunning London.

Working flexible hours so as to keep disruption to a minimum, a team of 20 specialist contractors has refurbished the building throughout, renovating and repairing many dozens of timber windows as well as hundreds of metres of soffits and guttering.

Tom Gunning, Managing Director, said Gunning London won the £600,000 contract on competitive tender: “Working on a project of this size and scale requires careful planning and control of our teams on site,” he explains.

Rapid Response Solutions (RRS), the European distributor of Hydra-Slide hydraulic skidding equipment, will hold an open house event at its Portsmouth, UK facility on Tuesday 10 September 2019, from 9am to 4pm.

The event, which will take place at the company’s Dundas Lane site, will be used as a platform to showcase the entire range of equipment from Canadian manufacturer Hydra-Slide, including its HT300 heavy track and LP350 low profile skidding system, AS500 alignment shoes, TT150 hydraulic turntable, climbing jacks, modular stands, and Hydra-Pac synchronous power pack.

Leeds based civil and structural engineering consultancy JPG has launched a dedicated new division in Strategic Land Engineering (SLE).

The unique new service links geospatial analysis with its existing engineering consultancy to provide full, early stage, site viability assessments to its clients.

JPG’s Strategic Land Engineer Owen Lokuciejewski-Taylor has evolved the service through linking the data he is able to collect on any given site, with state-of-the-art 3D modelling expertise and close collaboration with JPG’s infrastructure team.   He joined JPG recently having worked with The Sirius Group in shallow coal mine remediation.

Bull Products, a manufacturer of life-saving fire protection equipment, is protecting the tallest tower in the heart of London with over 150 of its Cygnus alarm units.

22 Bishopsgate is a 62-storey skyscraper that has now reached its highest point. Once complete, it will house 12,000 workers and include a range of restaurants and shops.

Bull has installed its Fire Call Point and First Aid Alarm and the Cygnus Detector Interface Unit. The Fire Call Point and First Aid Alarm provides a cost-effective and reliable solution for construction sites. By having a first aid alarm on site, workers can ensure first aiders are notified immediately of any incident and its location, thus providing maximum protection in an emergency.

SeaRock – a new joint venture between Aggregate Industries and Earlcoate construction – has completed an impressive delivery of armour stone to protect Dorset’s picturesque West Bay, for principle contractor Bam Nuttall. The project was part of a £9 million coastal defence project, funded by Defra, West Dorset Council and Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committee.

West Bay, on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, had been eroding rapidly, but SeaRock’s delivery of 36,000 tonnes – with each individual stone weighing between 0.3 and 10 tonnes – will halt the damage.

With the NHBC reporting the highest number of new home registrations since 2007, it’s good to see brick manufacturers continuing to increase production numbers, ensuring the supply of British-manufactured bricks keeps pace with demand.

Brick production figures have been consistently rising over recent years and this month’s figures, showing a modest but positive 2.2% rise for the first six months of 2019, demonstrate the result of ongoing investment in the sector.

AURELIUS Equity Opportunities SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN DE000A0JK2A8) (“Aurelius”) today announces the signing of binding contracts for its acquisition of the Armstrong ceiling tiles and grids businesses in Austria, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the UK from Knauf International GmbH (“Knauf”).

The transaction follows Knauf’s agreement to acquire Armstrong World Industries Inc’s EMEA and Pacific Rim business (“Armstrong EMEA”) in 2017. In order for this deal to complete, Knauf is required by the European Commission to sell the businesses Aurelius is acquiring (“the company”), which consist of two production facilities situated in Team Valley/UK and business operations and sales capabilities across 11 markets. The company will continue to trade under the Armstrong name for an agreed period of time.

Paul Patenall, Projects Director at U+I, has been elected as President of the British Council for Offices (BCO) and will focus on the positive impact the industry can have on wellness. Patenall formally took over from Katrina Kostic-Samen at the BCO’s Annual General Meeting last month.

Patenall set out his vision as Chair of this year’s BCO Conference, held in Copenhagen. The event explored the Danish concept of Arbejdsglæde, which is based on a balanced and considerate approach to work. The concept informs the city’s workplaces, which are renowned for their bold designs, intelligent use of natural light and space and for encouraging occupants to stay active throughout the day.

James Ayres, co-founder and operations director at Lime Green – UK-based manufacturer of healthy materials for beautiful buildings – cites pioneering data evidencing the importance of breathability for buildings.

Working with both the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) and ArchiMetrics, we installed four sensors into the south-facing, external wall of a two-bed, 1820s, Victorian home. These sensors monitored the performance of our breathable natural insulation materials, recording data every five minutes for over six years.

The IPG have united with three of their members, namely Newline Plumbing & Heating Supplies, Plumb Inn, and Gas & Plumb Bits to launch their newfound flagship stores across the UK, this Summer.

The IPG was formed in 2013 with one vision: to bring independent plumbing, heating and bathroom specialists together, and in turn, to give their customers the opportunity to buy the best brands locally at great prices. Fast forward five years, The IPG’s vision is now implemented across its member locations nationwide with a multitude of excellent brands on board.

Panasonic has introduced Voice Control with the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa to its air conditioning portfolio. Panasonic’s solutions that are compatible with the Comfort Cloud app, including all its domestic air-conditioners and PACi systems, can now be voice-activated to provide simple and convenient control.

This new functionality offers a wide variety of benefits for both the commercial and residential markets. For example, homeowners who are used to controlling their lighting and audio with their voice can now also set preferences for their Panasonic air conditioning system to create the desired environment. Once paired with a Panasonic air-conditioning unit via the Comfort Cloud app, homeowners can use Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa for simple tasks such as on/off, operating modes, temperature settings and checking operating status. For optimum comfort, a customised routine can also be created via settings in the Google Home app or Alexa Routines. Commands such as “OK, Google, Good Morning” can be programmed to set the desired temperature to save users time.