No competition for cast iron car park

The vulnerability of exposed pipework in a car park has made cast iron the automatic choice for the designers of a major new extension to the Telford Shopping Centre in Shropshire. The £17 million project sees 16 new shops with a total floor area of approximately 5,800 square metres, a new 7,500 square metres store for Beatties and a large 500 space car park being added to the centre. Cast iron has been used throughout the project for soil stack and rainwater drainage.
According to John Coats, an associate with architects Bradshaw Rowse Harker, the building’s designers, alternative materials did not even come into the question. He says: “The extension to the shopping centre includes six half levels of car parking over the shopping area and it was the need to ensure that the pipework installed there could withstand impact by vehicles or attack by vandals that determined our choice. In fact, we specify cast iron in most of the major projects we work on because of its strength and the fact that it will last the lifetime of the building. Having specified cast iron for the car park, it made sense to carry it on through the whole scheme, particularly as a lot of the water disposal routes lie within tenancies which makes it all the more important to install a reliable system.”
    
The cast iron system specified also has practical benefits for the mechanical and electrical installers N G Bailey & Co, as project manager Steve Davies explains: “We are responsible for the base build so we are installing the system that will serve the whole building. It is quite possible, however, that individual tenants might have specific requirements that could lead to additional work being required. As the cast-iron system is demountable, it is very easy to add new pipework.”

The strength of cast iron is one of the key features cited by the Cast Iron Drainage Development Authority (CIDDA). Spokesman Mike Rawlings says: “Cast iron is renowned for its strength and its ability to resist impact damage – and this strength does not reduce over time. In an installation such as this, where the pipework is exposed in a car park, there is obvious potential for both accidental and deliberate damage. Most alternative materials would be vulnerable to fracture in these circumstances whereas cast iron provides high resistance to damage.”

For further information on the benefits of cast iron drainage systems, contact CIDDA at Wyatt House, 72 Francis Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B16 8BR, call the CIDDA hotline on 0121 693 9909 or visit the website on www.cidda.com.
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For more information or a datasheet containing a detailed summary of the independent tests mentioned above please contact:

CIDDA
Wyatt House
72 Francis Road
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B16 8BR.

The CIDDA hotline number is 0121 693 9909, Fax: 0121 455 9785 or you can visit the website at www.cidda.com
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