Northern Beaches Hospital, Sydney Geberit Pluvia: Adding Simplicity to a State-of-the-Art Hospital

The Northern Beaches Hospital, Sydney, is Australia's biggest hospital project currently under construction and scheduled to open in 2018. AXIS Plumbing didn't think twice when it came to choosing a roof drainage system. With the outstanding support of Geberit's design team, they were confident to manage and install such a complex project successfully.

A Challenging Roof Structure

With a 50-space emergency department, 14 operating theatres, and a medical centre onsite, the complexity of this project extended as far as the roof structure. The hospital has many roofs of varying sizes. Using a siphonic drainage system meant fewer downpipes, outlets, and floor penetrations, which resulted in a reduction of material and labour and ultimately costs. The engineers had to consider different prevailing weather and restrictions on where the water could discharge. During the design process, ACOR Consultants sent schematic models of the roof structures to Geberit for clarification and advice about concepts. “The Geberit team was always very accommodating, helpful and easy to reach,“ says Martyne Preston, Hydraulic Services Engineer at ACOR Consultants.

Quality Technical Support

Because of the challenges of this project, ACOR Consultants undertook a training course run by Geberit at the beginning of their cooperation. “This course helped us get our head around what we needed to do to design the system,“ explains Martyne Preston.

From the start of the project, the Geberit sales and technical support teams played a pivotal part in the design process and cooperated closely with the engineers when they designed the siphonic system in 3D. Geberit checked calculations and suggested ways to save space and optimise the economic efficiency of the project.

Accuracy played a major role to ensure that the siphonic system would not clash with other services in the buildings. As the height in the car park was very limited, the engineers appreciated Geberit's input for clarification about sizes of components, required clearances and what they could and could not do with the pipework.

Optimised Design

The winning combination of the quality technical support and the advantages of the Geberit Pluvia siphonic system was vital for the Hydraulic Services Engineers when modelling the roof drainage system for this state-of-the-art building.

The fact that the Geberit service team was always very accommodating, helpful and easy to reach contributed to a smooth and productive process and an optimised design.

“The key benefit of working with Geberit from a design point of view is the willing and friendly technical support, which makes a big difference for a complex project,“ Martyne Preston sums up the biggest reason she would recommend Geberit to architects and plumbers. She also points out the advice of Lewis Kerrigan, Product Specialist and Plumbing Field Marketing Co-ordinator at Reece. As Geberit products are available through Reece, Australia's leading bathroom retailer, the installation is made much easier.

It comes to no surprise that Geberit is ranked number 18 on the first-ever Forbes’ Global 2000 Top Regarded Companies list, which evaluates companies based on trustworthiness/honesty, social conduct, employer policy and product/service performance.