Underfloor Air Distribution in Access Floors

In a presentation given at London South Bank University in 2004, leading consulting engineer David Arnold gave his opinion about underfloor air conditioning beneath access floors.

Arnold told his audience that, although underfloor cooling systems have been around since the mid-1960s, they didn’t take off in Europe until the 1980s. This was largely due to the increased use of access floor products in office developments.

Access floors were less popular in the US at this time but by the mid-1990s there had been a 40% increase in the number of new office buildings that chose to install access floors with underfloor air distribution.

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Well-designed, installed, tested and commissioned systems can provide significant advantages over conventional ceiling systems for many applications, but this needs to be a combined effort.

"To get the full benefit you need very good co-ordination between all the building trades throughout the design and construction process," Arnold said. "The implications of using a raised access floor must be considered right from the outset. If the equipment needs to be maintained, then ease of access is key and if it is a pressurised system then the underfloor plenum must be properly sealed to prevent uncontrolled air leakage. If the plenum leaks the system will not work."

"Who gets in first?" Mr Arnold continued. "The trouble is that the builder has overall responsibility for the structure and does he really know enough about what is needed to make sure an underfloor system works?”

Fieldmans Access Floors Ltd has twenty years’ experience installing access floors in office buildings and other environments and they are well-practised at co-ordinating the whole process. For more information, please call 0208 462 7100 or email Enquiries@Fieldmans.com.