Manual Winding Gear, Canary Wharf, London

Building Description

83 Barchester Street is a 6-storey affordable housing block in the Poplar/Canary Wharf area. It has made use of several 1930s and 1950s industrial buildings, particularly as reference for the industrial-era design of the sawtooth style roof.  The block contains a mixture of 115 apartments of varying sizes.

• 47 one-bedroom apartments
• 41 two-bedroom apartments
• 18 three-bedroom apartments
• 9 four-bedroom apartments

Proposed Solution and Implementation

We initially carried out a site visit to establish the expected operator positions, quantities of vents involved, and the brackets required for chain openers to fit to the vent frames and conduit runs. This included reviewing operator positions for ease of use from a wheelchair if required, as well as smooth operation and robust installation to ensure longevity.

We found that numerous windows were sited within deep reveals, which called for Teleflex manual winding gear to be installed due to the superior flexibility of the conduit used to form bends around corners from a preferred handle position.

In addition to this the final cill board positions covered large portions of the outer window frame, so pattresses also had to be installed for chain openers to mount down onto the cill boards securely.

The operating gearboxes were installed at low level to ensure that they were practical for use by residents with DDA requirements. Due to the load on the operators, and fixing positions involved, timber pattresses had to be fitted to allow for an extremely reliable fixing to be achieved for longevity.

Summary

The project was successfully completed in January 2021 with delivery and installation of 11 Teleflex manual window opener kits in a white finish. We supplied the kits and arranged our contractor to complete the works, installing the kits in two configurations.

• 5x White Midi-Style Operating Kits – Each operating 2 vents, with 1x 250mm chain opener per vent and a max 6 metre conduit run, and wall-mounting saddle brackets
• 6x White Midi-Style Operating Kits – Each operating 1 vent, with 1x 250mm chain opener per vent and a max 6 metre conduit run, and wall-mounting saddle brackets