What Do You Do? By Phil Gillatt, Silentair

I am often asked, 'Just what do Silentair do?' Writes Phil Gillatt, Technical Director.

I always thought it was a daft question given our trading name is Silentair, but I was asked the other day to made a list of the things we have done for clients and for ourselves over the last few years. The list was surprising, to say the least.

We started with the Serenity, a perfect AC solution for sound sensitive areas. It was then, and still is today, the quietest fan coil in the world.

From that came the Serenity Air distribution system, which was specially designed to help maintain the temperature selected for the room and at the same time eliminate draughts, even in post-production and Foley studios.

We combined the two to create the Serenity System, which is so quiet the fan coil and the distribution system are meant to be installed inside the studio. Another world first!

The simple design of these two products allows us to increase or decrease the capacity of each system to match different size and shapes of rooms, providing the perfect system every time.

Naturally, we were soon asked if we did silent fresh air as well as silent AC as our clients were becoming aware of the need for fresh air particularly in a heavily insulated studio. Without a constant fresh air supply 'work time' in the studio is reduced and regular breaks outside the studio become more necessary.

Many other air condition companies incorporate the fresh air into the AC system. We were never very keen on this method, as it tends to cause the AC system to malfunction. So we built our own fresh air supply system. We called it the Hush Box which delivers fresh air at the same noise level as the Serenity with adjustable air volumes to suit the number of people in the studio.

We then turned our attention towards TV and film studios after being asked can we do a "Silent mobile AC system" which could be used during filming, then moved to another location to cool another set. Five months later, a range of mobile systems was completed all using flexible hoses to connect the outdoor and indoor AC units together. 40 metres of flexible hose allows the noisy wheeled outdoor unit to be placed outside the studio and the indoor unit wheeled in to position to deliver conditioned air silently on to the set. Interestingly, we developed this system further for 'McGraw Hill', which they use today to great effect to provide a silent cooling to their news desks. Our solution for them was to wheel the fan coil boxes into the correct position around the desk for the duration of the shoot. The fan coils are returned to their park positions out of the way against the studio walls. According to the client they work very well.

The Olympics arrived in the UK shortly after our mobile era and we were asked for a very different type of AC which could be used in a temporary broadcast studio, but it had to be very quiet, quick and easy to install/remove. The result was what we call 'The Trombone system'.

We developed this system so it simply pushed together – no skill or screws required – it is very fast to install (under one hour), start to finish, and very, very quiet. We hired them out for the duration of the games and ended up eventually supplying well over 50 systems to various broadcasters. One of the users was Al Jazeera who, as a result of our work and operating noise levels, made us their preferred supplier for all the AC in their new broadcast and post-production studios in the Shard. They were over the moon with what we did and the low noise level we achieved.

After our success at Al Jazeera, we were asked to develop a new type of heat and cool AC for large scripted TV studios. This exclusive design completely changes the way to heat or cool a scripted studio. This system is so flexible each set can be conditioned individually and the capacity for that set can be temporary increased/decreased if required. Energy costing with this system are slashed by over 78% from standard traditional ducted systems.

I guess the question, 'What do we do?' isn't such a silly question after all!

Please contact us if any of the above is of interest.

www.silentair.co.uk

This article is also available to read at BFV online.

(JP)