Brompton Bicycles, London

In June 2017, Colt was approached by the iconic British brand, Brompton, to provide a ventilation solution that would help them overcome brazing fume issues and more generally overheating issues in their new manufacturing facility. Having recently moved their manufacturing hub from Kew to Greenford, they required a new ventilation system to deal with brazing fumes and poor air quality, associated overheating issues and also a lack of air movement in the assembly areas and meeting spaces on a mezzanine floor.

Brazing is a joining process wherein metals are bonded together using a filler metal with a melting (liquidus) temperature greater than 450 °C (840 °F), but lower than the melting temperature of the base metal. As can be expected, the process produces a massive amount of heat, which quickly leads to uncomfortable and unsafe working conditions if not ventilated and cooled effectively.

To minimise disruption to their production levels and get the area of the workshop safe and comfortable for staff rapidly, Brompton were keen to get the project completed as quickly as possible – a challenge that our installers and project managers rose to. Starting site checks in Dec 2020, install was completed in June 2021.

The Colt solution for this project was fully mechanical and included:

• 8x roof mounted Tornado roof extract fans for powered extract of the hot air and any harmful fumes given off by the brazing process
• 10x evaporative cooling CoolStream Units that replaced the warm, contaminated air removed by Tornado with cool, fresh air
• Numerous temperature sensors to detect the rise and fall in temperature within the space to trigger or turn off the systems
• A bespoke Coltair aluminium ductwork system designed and manufactured in-house by Colt to provide inlet air
• Bespoke-designed fabric ductwork that was printed with the Brompton logo to create a striking visual effect in the manufacturing plant.

The installed system was very well received by the Brompton team for its highly effective improvement in air quality, air movement and heat extract and efficient performance.