UK: Hotel refurb

Holiday Inn Express

Auto-cleaning duct beats hotel dust, boosting comfort and economy

IHG group’s new three-storey Holiday Inn Express at St Albans, Hertfordshire, provided an ideal test location for the new Daikin auto-cleaning duct accessory. Michael Oats, IHG’s Director of Engineering Design, Europe, says maintaining fan coil units in guest rooms is challenging for a hotel chain. “It’s an ongoing process of cleaning filters – and with high-occupancy hotel bedrooms, filters get dirty very quickly and the hotels can suffer poor temperature control, higher operating costs and increased failures. Clean filters mean fan coil units are more efficient and provide good comfort control – and this benefits our owners, operators and guests.”

Auto-cleaning duct beats hotel dust, boosting comfort and economy

The auto-cleaning duct was installed on a bedroom fan coil unit, part of the hotel’s Daikin VRV IV heat recovery system. It replaces the standard filter on the rear of FXDQ and FDXS slim ducted units, typically installed in hotel bedrooms. Programmed to clean itself at regular intervals it avoids any build-up of dust and the need for manual cleaning of filters and grilles. This brings improved air quality, maintenance cost savings and better system performance. Dust is collected in an internal box – and when it is nearly full a warning light alerts the housekeeping staff to empty it, via a normal vacuum cleaner hose. This is expected to be at intervals of approximately two to three months.

"With the Daikin auto-cleaning units we can already see more efficiency in our maintenance and housekeeping operations.”

Bethan Jones, deputy general manager, Holiday Inn Express at St Albans

Increased flexibility

The St Albans Holiday Inn Express has five Daikin VRV IV heat recovery systems – one for the ground floor and two each for the two upper floors. In addition to the economic benefits of highly efficient heat recovery systems, the configuration provides flexibility to cut costs further through selective operation related to occupancy levels.