HVAC industry professionals got a lot more than they bargained for on the first day of London HEVAR which started today.
With more than a thousand people pre-registered to attend the two day HVAC exhibition, London's Royal Horticultural Halls was buzzing with visitors keen to look at products from the building services industry and attend HEVAR's heating and cooling seminars.

HEVAR visitor Peter Turner, a building controls supervisor from Brunel University said 'I'm interested in looking at the building management systems. We've got a BMS system we maintain at the university. Its been a good day here. Its my first time at London HEVAR. There's some really good product information here'.

Many visitors flew into UK this week to visit the London HEVAR exhibition in Greycoat Street, near Victoria, and exhibitors were pleased with the visitors that arrived.

Craig Wasson speaking for exhibitor Ziehl Abegg said 'London HEVAR is a lot busier than last year's Manchester HEVAR. There's lots of space to exhibit and we've had some nice enquiries. The quality of people attending here is good and they are serious customers. The location is good and easy to get to with the transport links. It a good chance to network with others over a few beers'.

At 11.30am today, the ACR seminar programme kicked off with LG's Graham Hendra speaking about energy efficiency in practice and focused on what makes good energy efficient VRF design.

Upstairs from 10am-12, a CIBSE conference on building energy certificates took place with Jacqueline Balian director of information explaining how you get them and how you give them. Two thirds of all energy assessors are accredited by CIBSE. Balian explained the value of energy assessment and told the gathered audience that CIBSE had 443 fully accredited energy assessors, with 331 currently under assessment.

More chairs had to be found for a packed out seminar on the subject of 'Biomass: Is it the future?' Gideon Richards, the heating and cooling sector advisor to the UK's Renewable Energy Association spoke up for biomass as the way forward for the UK.

Heating seminars upstairs at the venue ran alongside a full ACR seminar programme downstairs. IOR's past president Guy Hundy talked about 'Getting the measure on heating and cooling and systems'.

Barry Lyons spoke about the R22 phase out and the rules and regulations for use of reclaimed and recovered R22 come 2010. Lyons said time is running out for current R22 users and they must have a sensible and acheivable strategy in place for the future operation of current R22- dependant plant.

Visitors will get the chance to vote for their favourite sustainable technology in the S-Factor, run by the HVCA on September 25, the final day of London HEVAR.

'Is the heating industry disappearing?-a 2020 vision debate' is another hot seminar happening tomorrow.

London HEVAR 08 is CPD accredited and time spent at seminars contributes to building services professionals CPD requirements. The HVAC exhibition is free to attend.

For London HEVAR's seminar programme click HERE