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PLUMBING CONNECTION
SPRING 2016
INDUSTRY NEWS
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS
On a perfectly chilled night, across from the Sydney
Opera House at the Cruise Bar on Circular Quay, REHAU
celebrated its forty year anniversary of doing business in
Australia.
Representing all the divisions of REHAU businesses,
customers were flown in from all corners of Australia –
Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide as well as REHAU
Partners including builders, consultants, and distributors
(Reece, Nover, Green Process among others.) In addition,
management was pleased to welcome ex-REHAU staff
Jurgen Voigtmann (former Managing Director AUS), and
Elizabeth Gordon, (former Customer Service).
Welcoming the attendees, Mr. Elliott Burke, Managing
Director of REHAU ANZ, spoke about the importance
of the milestone. He noted that the vision for Australia
has always been long term and that staunch confidence
has helped REHAU achieve so many successes while
weathering the inevitable ups and downs of doing
business over the years.
Mr. Burke made a special mention of REHAU founder Mr.
Helmut Wagner. He noted that the pioneering spirit that
drove the business to grow from only three employees
in 1948 to the global enterprise it is today still inspires
everyone in the organisation. It was precisely this spirit
that inspired the expansion to Australia in 1976.
Once the decision was made, someone with the same
entrepreneurial mindset would be required to make it
work. That person was Mr. Jurgen Voigtmann. Unfazed
by the prospect of travelling halfway around the world,
to do business in another culture and another language,
all Mr. Voigtmann needed was a suitcase filled with
brochures and product samples along with a heavy dose
of determination.
The rest is history...
INNOVATIVE CHILLING SOLUTION FOR TASMANIAN
HATCHERY
In the field of aquaculture, there’s no more vital task than
providing the constant water heating or chilling required
for optimum fish stock growth.
For the Huon Aquaculture Group in Tasmania,
recognised globally as being the premium producer of
fresh and smoked salmon products, the meeting of
this key requirement is no less critical. For a recent
application at one of its key hatcheries, the company
through the project designer Fresh By Design turned to
Rheem Australia for a specialist, large capacity chiller.
The task encompassed a total volume of 330,000 litres
and 260m2 of exposed water area to support 9000kg of
fish. All this is maintained within 12 x 22,000-litre tanks.
The system also includes a 40,000-litre bio filter.
Rheem’s expertise in the water heating and chilling
sector proved invaluable when the time came to design
the facility’s water chilling system.
Because the tanks support such valuable fish stock,
keeping the water at the optimum temperature needed
for them to survive and thrive presented a significant
technical challenge.
“The project brief called for us to be able to vary
the water temperatures in the tanks from seven to 14
degrees Celsius month-by-month depending on where
the fish were in their growth cycle,” Rheem Pool Heating’s
National Sales & Marketing Manager, Mark Crowther said.
“The difficulty in achieving this stems from sourcing
the design and manufacture of the plant that’s going to
meet that sort of performance characteristic, particularly
at such low temperatures. Seven degrees is normally well
beyond the scope of this type of plant.”
Rheem commissioned the installation of two Accent
50 kilowatt chillers in early 2015. The Accent plants were
chosen due to their great reliability, specialist design, and
the fact they could be custom-built.
“In this instance, we needed to use a titanium heat
exchanger because we couldn’t risk any leaching of
chemicals into the water from the materials at the
contact point,” Mark explained. “It’s only through
Accent’s specialist engineering design and ability to
custom manufacture that we were able to do this type of
project. We’ve had great feedback on how well the plant is
working.”
The facility uses a full recirculation system, which
means it reuses 95-99% of the water needed, which
ensures the fish live in optimum conditions and will go to
sea healthy and in peak condition. The small amount of
water exchanged each day gets used in other areas of the
farm through composting, land spreading and irrigation.