Megapress for 'keeping a cool head' while shopping
Properly conditioned air is a basic prerequisite for a pleasant shopping experience. Therefore the cooling of retail units is of particular importance, for the lighting alone causes the temperatures to rise too high. During the partial refurbishment of the 'Theresien Center' shopping mall in Straubing, Germany, one of the tasks involved modernising the cooling plant – without interruption of the shopping activities.
The building section concerned has approximately 1,400 m² on two floors, requiring 300 metres of new cooling pipes of non-alloy steel in the sizes DN 15 to DN 50. "We usually weld them. But welding work in a shopping center full of shoppers carries a certain risk," says Robert Sieber, head of Sieber Haustechnik GmbH. Therefore those responsible chose to use the Megapress innovative press connecting system for thick-walled steel pipes. Sieber points out the advantage of the new system: "Pressing these pipes reduces the assembly time by over half compared with welding. Also, there is no need to wait for the pipes to cool or take special fire precautions."
But Megapress has other advantages as well: A special sealing element made of EPDM ensures that the connectors make a reliable seal even on rough surfaces. "That meant that we could use pre-painted pipes, which saved us having to apply the corrosion protection layer on site," emphasises Sieber. Regulations prescribe a special protective coating for cooling pipes made of non-alloy steel. "For that we usually have to call on the help of specialist colleagues, because that sort of coating needs a lot of skill," continues the BSE expert.
Altogether, as Robert Sieber reckons, it is considerably cheaper to press pre-painted cooling pipes: "The Megapress connectors cost more than normal welding connectors, of course. But even just halving the assembly time more than compensates for that. And with cooling pipes, we save an entire work stage that has to be done by a specialist craftsman." In the Theresien Center that added up to more than 100 working hours saved.