Leeds City Council recently completed a project to upgrade the heating plant and infrastructure at a sheltered housing development in Leeds, which made full use of a unique valve system that provides zonal control to district heating schemes to allow for maintenance or expansion.

Halliday Court, which comprises 90 flats in total with 55 in the main block and 35 spread across five satellite blocks, is benefiting from V-Flex valve technology designed by Flexenergy. This is the only valve system in the UK specially developed for pre-insulated polybutylene pipe networks.

The valves were installed as part of a heating and hot water system upgrade at Halliday Court, with pairs of V-Flex pre-insulated valves installed at building entry points to allow for localised isolation for system maintenance or network expansion at a future date.

In addition to the valves, Flexenergy supplied around 520m of its pre-insulated Flexalen polybutylene pipe sized to meet the diverse requirements of the heating and hot water network and the individual apartments.

James Hall, Mechanical Inspector at NPS Property Management Consultants in Leeds, commented: “The Flexenergy pipe system and V-Flex valves were the best value by far for this project. The Flexalen pipe work is flexible, lightweight and energy efficient and was installed swiftly and without problem. V-Flex valves also deliver zonal control and can be fusion welded directly to the main network, which allows operators to control and service PB networks much more efficiently.”

Flexenergy’s Sales Director, Sandy Fairley, added: “This was an excellent project to confirm the capabilities of our pre-insulated valve range, which provide operators with greater control over heat networks. In addition, the Flexalen 600 pipe work used for this project is highly thermal-efficient, fully recyclable and, being made of polybutylene, will not corrode, unlike traditional pipe materials.”