Merchant Venturers College

Smoke Control Services has successfully completed a project in a prestigious apartment development in a historic part of Bristol after working closely with the contractor to meet building inspectors’ stringent requirements.

The company has installed two smoke ventilation shafts in the former Merchant Venturers College in Unity Street in the heart of the city centre, which is being developed as a complex of 49 luxury apartments, duplexes, triplexes and penthouses by property development company Carrot Limited.

With the Gothic-style building dating back to 1865, the build – which involved adding two top floors of glass and aluminium panels to the existing four stories – was sensitive and carefully monitored by building control inspectors.

Smoke Control Services worked closely with site management company UCM Ltd, who were contracted to oversee the build, to make bespoke alterations to its uniVent shaft system to ensure it met their requirements.

The systems works by detecting smoke which triggers a lobby door vent to open automatically to vent the smoke into the chimney. The vent at the head of the chimney also opens to release the smoke into the atmosphere.

UCM’s Clive Piper said the relationship with Smoke Control Services worked well and enabled them to get the job done.

“They were very professional, and adapted their standard uniVent system to allow for the particular concerns the inspectors had because of the age and character of the building,” he said.

Allan Meek, Smoke Control Services managing director, said the company worked hard to keep smoke control solutions in apartment blocks as simple as possible.

“Most jobs come down to a common denominator of elements, which is why we have designed uniVent as a modular system to meet 99% of all apartment development requirements,” he said.

“But in this case we were happy to make the small changes to adapt the system to meet the requirements of the building inspectors. It’s resulted in a job well done!”

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