Solray Radiant Panels from Comyn Ching & Co - the market leader in radiant heating - have been installed in a recently opened £40 million extension to the Royal Preston Hospital, part of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust.

The Royal Preston Hospital provides acute and general hospital services to a catchment population of some 380,000 people within the Central Lancashire area. The project involved the construction of three new buildings to enhance and complement the existing hospital. A three-storey block has been linked to the first floor via a corridor to the main hospital complex and provides patient accommodation for obstetrics, gynaecology and elective orthopaedics. The second building is a predominantly single storey block, which is being utilised for elderly rehabilitation; whilst a third building houses a new two-storey education unit.

Solray Panels are installed within the ceiling perimeters of all three new buildings, ensuring that every inch of wall and floor space is made available within the hospital. This approach is a much more popular alternative to traditional wall mounted radiators in such a busy, high traffic environment.

Radiant Panels have the added advantage for hospitals that they are hygienically superior too. There are no nooks and crannies where dust, dirt or harmful bacteria can accumulate. Each Panel simply offers a smooth, wipe clean surface, making it far easier and cheaper to maintain. Radiant Panels are designed to heat the space with optimum efficiency, running on the new building's low temperature hot water heating circuit. They are also quick and easy to install and help minimise the cost of components and time of installation required for pipework runs, boxing, ceiling panels, controls and other components that would normally be required for other types of heating system. Radiant Panels are also virtually invisible to the naked eye, and therefore create a more aesthetically pleasing finish, thus fulfilling the hospital design criteria for clean lines whilst also maintaining a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

The Main Contractor for the project was Shepherd Construction, the mechanical and engineering work was undertaken by Haden Young Ltd and Blezard Design & Consult were the project M&E consulting engineers. Originally developed by Comyn Ching more than 70 years ago, Solray Radiant Panels have evolved through the generations into the modern, highly efficient, state of the art designs proving so popular today in public sector and commercial applications. Radiant Panels can be tailor-made to the highest standards of quality and manufactured to suit specific project requirements at the company's London-based design and production facility.