In October 2009 the New Zealand Fire Service (NZFS) requested tenders for the repair / upgrade of the space heating and Domestic Hot Water (DHW) system at the Newtown Fire Station in Wellington.

The site had a history of very poor DHW delivery, increasingly elevated maintenance costs with the 35 year old pipe network becoming progressively unreliable and exorbitant daily operating expenses for the calorifier / gas boiler system.

Climatemaster Ltd (Part of the D W Dentice Group) was successful in its bid to provide an engineered solution that not only addressed the NZFS issues, but also extended the brief to allow that during natural disasters, the service could operate its new system within the confines of its own existing on-site generator, which means that it could upgrade its support during Civil Defence Emergencies. Furthermore it ensured that the miniscule amount of power required for the new DHW system was only consumed outside of national grid peak demand, providing the NZFS with a high degree of corporate responsibility.

Climatemaster Ltd's Managing Director Mr Rick Hudepohl, personally assessed that the continuation with the existing calorifier / gas boiler system, posed problematic issues and contained an unacceptable degree of risk and therefore his recommendation was for the complete removal of the 35 year old plant.

After careful consultation with the NZFS executive, it became very clear that out of the three options provided for consideration, a variant of our highly successful Heat Recovery Dairy Farm pilot programme (converting a milk vat chiller into a simultaneous chiller and hotwater heatpump), partly funded by EECA, Climatemaster Ltd and Bridgeman Farms, could be developed into New Zealand's first space heating / DHW heatpump system delivered off a single condensor.

The feat was even more remarkable because we successfully melded the award winning German DHW unit into one of the best VRF Fujitsu General system available in New Zealand, knowing that if we could integrate all the VRF controls to the German unit, we would be able to capitalise on the high degree of efficiency from this power plant.

Climatemaster Ltd has been so impressed by the performance of the German made Eureka Heat Recovery unit it has secured the sole distributorship of the equipment and will review future designs to include this as an DHW option, especially as a pending reduction in the national gas supply will mean gas price increases and a requirement to fulfil DHW applications with shock loads such as those encountered by emergency services, restaurants and hotels etc.

While the project has a clear environmental benefit, the main driver has been to reliably reduce the operating expenditure for the NZFS and at a 92 - 94% energy reduction with a 15 month pay back period, this has undoubtedly been achieved.

Mr Hudepohl has been lucky enough to have a team of highly skilled refrigeration engineers, electricians and plumbers, who have pulled together in exceptionally difficult circumstances to maintain the fire station's 24/7 operational status, often working longer hours at their own expense. Certainly he is appreciative of their belief in his design, the cause for the project and the tolerance shown by the Newtown firefighters for the minor disruptions during the system change over.

Mr Hudepohl's only regret is that his father, Henk Hudepohl a well respected engineer in his own right became terminally ill during the project and passed away before completion. He would have certainly enjoyed the endeavours of his son to meet and exceed the expectations of the project brief.