Chester Hotel

Chester Hotel, Aberdeen

Illuminating solution for air conditioning in 5 star Hotel

A £5 million refurbishment programme, which saw the Simpsons Hotel in Aberdeen transform into the five star Chester Hotel, called for some special creativity in air conditioning design for public areas. The hotel’s new owners commissioned a spectacular 12-month upgrade throughout the hotel which now has 54 guest rooms and two suites, plus conference or wedding facilities for up to 300 people. It also boasts a new lounge cocktail bar and a fine dining restaurant. The system chosen to air condition the public areas and the conference and wedding facilities was Daikin VRV III Heat Recovery.

Illuminating solution for air conditioning in five star hotel and conference centre

The client was keen to get the Daikin system for its high energy efficiency and the benefits of VRV heating and cooling.

It was challenging getting the air conditioning into the main conference room because of the thick acoustic insulation above the ceiling. There wasn’t really a void to house the units. Various alternatives were considered, but in the end ‘domes’ were fabricated to match the circular light fittings. The domes provided depth to accommodate Daikin slim ducted fan coil units, each with 7kW of cooling and 8kW of heating.

“The entire refurbishment took almost a year, during which the client was taking bookings for future weddings and functions. So we had a firm deadline: we had to get the project completed.”

Chris Thoms, Mechanical Design Manager for Hutcheon Services, Aberdeen

Heat recovery a big advantage for hotels

Peter Gemmell, Daikin senior consultant sales engineer says: “The particular advantage of VRV in hotels is the heat recovery through the full heating and cooling scenario. If you can imagine, cooling a function suite and a bar while heating the hotel bedrooms. This is the only five star hotel in Aberdeen, and we are very proud to be associated with it."