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Premier Travel Inns takes KAL-GUARD+ nationwidel
01/06/06
Whitbread’s Premier Travel Inns, the UK’s largest hotel chain, is to install WATERMATIC KAL-GUARD+ units in each of its 460 hotels across the UK as part of its overall strategy to minimise energy usage costs and deliver its environmental management and performance policies.
The decision comes after an initial 12-month trial of Kal-Guard+ at the County Hall Premier Travel Inn, London, which began in 2002, together with other trials at a ‘control site’ in the Restaurant at the Parkway Premier Travel Inn, Guildford, and a further eighteen Restaurant Premier Travel Inn trial sites that were installed in January 2004.
Based on the results of the trials and monitoring over the last three years, that established annual running costs and the performance of fixtures and fittings operating with the KAL-GUARD+ units in place, KAL-GUARD+ units have to date been installed at a further 33 Premier Travel Inn locations. Whitbread plans to install KAL-GUARD+ in an additional 348 Travel Inn sites as part of a rolling programme across the UK over the next 12 months.
KAL-GUARD+ is an innovative electrolytic scale inhibitor that incorporates electronic controls to match the level of treatment to suit the hardness of the water. Developed by WATERMATIC, the commercial division of Salamander Engineering Limited - a specialist in the development of water treatment products and solutions, in particular those that protect against limescale and corrosion - KAL-GUARD+ has been shown to reduce limescale formation on heating surfaces by up to 80 percent in independent testing at Cranfield University.s
Prior to considering WATERMATIC’s KAL-GUARD+, Whitbread had been using a salt based water softening treatments for their incoming water, with the aim of reducing the level of limescale build-up in its Premier Travel Inn restaurants and hotels. Whitbread Group Energy & Waste Manager, Paul Rogers, explains:
“The salt softeners were working fine, the issue lay with the reliance on system operators to maintain and fill salt levels within the salt-based softener unit that was exposing Premier Travel Inn locations to the detrimental effects of limescale formation and build-up. There’s a fair amount of ‘maintenance’ that goes with a salt-based system, from an annual service to weekly back-washing, and with no water filter fitted as part of the unit, there’s the additional concern over grit and sand entering systems via the water supply.”
Whitbread makes a significant commitment to achieving good environmental practice through the efficient use of resources - energy and water - that includes minimising the waste of these resources wherever possible. “We looked at KAL-GUARD+ and it simply aligns with our overall environmental strategy,” explains Paul, “with further benefits extending to its simple installation and easy maintenance – you put it in and walk away.”
He adds: “KAL-GUARD+ delivers guaranteed water treatment that in turn achieves improved protection of fixtures and fittings and greater energy efficiency through gas savings in water heating. The units don’t need ongoing operator interaction or annual servicing, have a water filter installed as standard, and without the requirement for ongoing granulated salt to be added to the system, as with the previous water-softening system, there’s no associated labour costs.
“The three year trials have demonstrated that KAL-GUARD+ reduces annual running costs. Additional, less quantifiable benefits, include a reduction in the number of premature failures of fixtures and fittings such as water heaters and tap valves, many of which can be attributed to excessive limescale build up.”
The KAL-GUARD+ units will be fitted as standard in all new-build Premier Travel Inn locations, with Whitbread removing the salt-based water softening units from existing locations and replacing them with the Kal-Guard. Whitbread is developing its installation programme and strategy with assistance from WATERMATIC.
Premier Travel Inn is the UK’s largest hotel chain within the country’s budget hotel industry, with 468 hotels across the UK.
WATERMATIC is the commercial division of Salamander Engineering Limited and provides products to combat limescale and corrosion in commercial and industrial premises. As well as being ideal for use in the hospitality and leisure industries and applications, KAL-GUARD+ is successfully used in factories, nursing homes and government buildings. WATERMATIC implements an ongoing research and development programme to create innovative solutions that fulfil the requirements of many organisations for low cost of ownership with minimum environmental impact.
For more information about KAL-GUARD+ and WATERMATIC, visit: www.watermatic.co.uk, or T: 0121 378 1188
KAL-GUARD+ is a registered trademark
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