Revisit old Wycombe Sports Centre(3) - THE PLANT ROOM

[@z185284]

The production quality on this channel never ceases to amaze me

[@passacaglia28]

I'm completely in awe at how much effort you put into your videos!! Five stars for sure!!

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Thanks but where are my stars you promised? ;)

[@passacaglia28]

Unfortunately, You Tube only has one "like" button. That will have to do for now! Lol!

[@mrdummy_nl]

Great video. We will never forget it this way. It stays forever in our memories, also for him who guided you around. :) Every detail very well recorded.

[@mrmattandmrchay]

yep, but especially if people viewing are one of the probably millions of people that have used the place in it's 40 year lifespan. I remember the place as a kid - there used to be a big inflatable ship in the main pool on a Saturday morning. I remember my mate (when we were kids) was always getting into trouble, untying girl's bikini tops from behind - HMMMM!! some memories from me also :/

[@thedjer9190]

Watched this back several times hoping the part 4 etc will show up. Will we ever get to see the tunnels?

[@GaryReggae]

Excellent, this is the first video of this type I have seen about plant rooms, and I have been in many!

[@roverp6tc]

Absolutely brilliant video Mr Matt, very informative, thank you

[@therealchayd]

So much detail, very nicely done!

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Thanks :) I bumped into someone in McDonalds a couple of years ago that had a son called "Chay". This is the only other person I've met with the same name, except Chay Blyth who is a famous Scottish yachtsman. Is Chay your first name?

[@therealchayd]

Hi Matt, yep, that's my first name, also named after the famous yachtsman. There was a Facebook group called 'A bunch of Chays', have quite a few members, but don't know what happened to it, I guess the novelty wore off. Good choice of name for your son :)

[@ersonthemesa]

I really enjoyed your tour. So very well done ! Great animations.

[@dykodesigns]

Very good and professional (broadcast quality) video, there's so much installation technology that goes into a swimming pool. That building must have had quite the gas bill every month considering the vast amount energy it used. That area underneath the pool is a pretty corrosive envoirnment for the concrete structure considering all the chlorine and acid chemicals about in the plant room. This is a very challenging envoinrment for reinforced concrete structures, as the acidic nature of this envoirnment requires a generous (about 50mm!) amount of cover on the rebars and a high qualilty concrete to prevent corrosion (chlorine is very unhealthy for reinforce concrete). There is a such an interresting world of catacoms and installation technology behind the scenes, that the public normally doesn't see. I've once visited a projector room of a movie theather in 2004 during a tour when it had just opened and the film reels where massive! They where playing a Harry Potter movie at the time and I got to see a bit from the projector room! Nowerdays a lot of these massive reel projectors have been replaced by a glorified dvd player...

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Yep, going to be going into the air exchange systems in the next part. The amount of maintenance this place must have had to keep all those pumps, filters and everything else must have been a task in itself. I suppose if the pumps and redundancy pumps failed it could close the centre. Probably part of the reason why the 1975 building was demolished - easier to start again with new equipment.

[@dykodesigns]

Also, modern equipment is much more power efficient. Especially heating systems, as today there are ways to use heat pumps that extract water from the soil which is a bit like a inverse refrigerator. Not to mention systems that use various heat exchangers and regenitive drive systems in everything's that got a motor. The Otis gen2 lifts are an example from the top of my head where excess power can be fed back into the power grid, so that less energy is wasted. Today building designers also have to make energy perfomance calculations, (as part of the building code) to prove a building meets a certain level of energy efficiency. The energy requirments are getting tighter every few years which can be quite challenging as increasing the amount of thermal insulation of the building's envlope can only get you so far. Even for a single family house adding a shower drain with a heat exchanger can add some improvements in the energy efficiency coefficient of the building.

[@victorb2255]

What a good video (4 months very well spent). Like how you got permission unlike some people (not saying any names) and not start messing with the equipment and breaking it. You were so lucky they let you into the plant room normally they would turn you down because of health and safety (some health and safety makes sense but sometimes it is utter rubbish). It is so sad 😭 to see all this equipment go and be scrapped but I suppose most of the system is fairly inefficient seeing how much gas it uses. I did not know that much chlorine goes into a pool each day. Wish they would just modernise the building and not completely demolish it (by the way it looks this place was in better condition then Tooting's leisure centre). Lots of water 💦 tanks in that little room I would be a bit scared 😳.

[@passacaglia28]

His technical videos are amazing!

[@FireController1847]

Agreed! :D

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Thanks for the comments. I know the guy giving to the tour, so perhaps this is how I've bypassed the usual H&S! Regarding the water tanks, apart from the water softener (which you see in the video) I didn't see any.

[@victorb2255]

mrmattandmrchay oh ok my mistake

[@freegameLP]

The thumbnail just perfectly showed the first thing I always think about when hearing "plant room". It seems to be a common (British?) word, just not something you learn when learning English as a foreign language

[@cameronmitchell6157]

Lol I know

[@mrmattandmrchay]

HAHA, yep, even me!! PLANT ROOM? You mean like, growing trees and daffodils!! I was going to start this video with "A plant room isn't a place for growing daffodils, plant in this context means "heavy machinery"". I've just done a bit of research and found this: "Plant Machinery" derives from the use of the word "Plant" for a factory. In that context "plant" comes from the latin plantare meaning "fix in place"; indeed in accounting terms all plant machinery is considered a fixed asset. It gets a bit more confusing when you see "heavy plant crossing" signs. When I was little I would be scared of those because I thought it would be Triffids. Tell you what, I'll add something to part 2 along these lines. I don't like to keep my videos TOO SERIOUS so this will break it up a bit! :)

[@Noodleude]

yes!!! I've been waiting for this!!! thank you!

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Cool, it's been finally delivered! Thanks for the comment, Part 2 is coming soon but I have no date I'm afraid, maybe in 4months time HAHA (I hope not)

[@Noodleude]

mrmattandmrchay thanks for all the work you put into videos like this. they are muck better than most I've seen, and very educational. it is fine if it takes 4 months. take all the time you need.😀

[@Coolkeys2009]

That's one of the best plant room videos I've watched, wish there were more videos with this level of detail e.g. for power stations etc. Thanks for posting. So how much of that equipment did get once removed? That CHP systems looks a bit over kill for your central heating and lights :-)

[@mrmattandmrchay]

I love doing videos like these, as I always START from assuming people know nothing about it. So I do the same, for the average person I make it interesting explaining it from the ground upwards (not literally, but you know what I mean LOL) There is a little bit of back ground info that was provided by my friend who once serviced the boilers in this place (this is how I got the Alan Yignis name, or however it's spelt). The CHPs were fitted as the primary electricity generator for the building to save money. Problem was, they did their sums wrong as the units provided too much heat that couldn't be dissipated quickly enough which meant the CHPs kept shutting down. The CHPs never generated the amount of electricity that they should have done because of this reason.

[@Crage1981]

Hey Matt! Thanks a lot for this video. I think, I would never go in a plantroom like this because of my phobia of pumps, altought I´m very interested in the details of a pool. Thank you very much!

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Thanks. Interesting phobia, although I never disrespect other people's phobia because I have the strange one about water tanks. With pumps though, it must be the noise they make, as you can rarely see any moving parts or movement of the substance they are pumping?

[@Crage1981]

I don´t know what it is about pumps. I can remeber there was a pump in a dark hallway at the farm of my oncle where I ever feared of getting along. But that one was never connected, it only sits there for spare. In the past I was also afraid of heatingrooms, I was never going into one without somebody at my side. But through my work as technician for internetconnections and telecommunication at somebodys home, I sometimes have to go in heatingrooms because of the telephone connections. It is everytime hard and when there is an unexpected noise, I sometimes almost s*it my pants.. ;-) I think my phobia is the nature of pumps that they just can start every time they want... maybe its a fear of unexpected noise... the noise itself does not matter to me.

[@CommercialGasEngineerVideos]

Very interesting videos. Thanks

[@MazeFrame]

Very well done and very interesting.

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Thanks :)

[@Foxy1066]

I installed the updated control panel in there back in the 90's.

[@SummerADDE_Elevators]

Intresting vid! But damn, I really like the choice of songs used here! I do recognize the itnro song as I have used parts of it myself, but the background song taht appears when you narrate, what is that song and is it within the audiolibrary?

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Thanks! :) Hmmm, I'll have to look it up and let you know. Have you ever seen Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy? kzbin.info/www/bejne/n6bYnqGgf7x5hZY See 2.02 - this is what I was trying to replicate and I think I did a pretty good job! But as usual, the back ground music (which I found) was copyrighted. The alternative music that I used fitted perfectly though. This in itself was a task, it took me 2 evenings to find this music. Often this is one of the difficult tasks, finding music that fits in with the video!

[@harrisonhealey1679]

this video is really good! i cant believe how much behind the scenes people dont even know about lol my local hornchurch sports centre is exactly the same as this one, built in 1975 or 76 and they are going to be demolishing it in 2018 to make a new one

[@mrmattandmrchay]

A new channel Mr Healey!? :) You are right, and if this machinery wasn't maintained continuously then the hot water that we take for granted that comes out of the shower wouldn't work. But what happens in the pipe work and the plant room is fascinating! All those pumps and motors that are working for nearly all the day. There is some more derelict machinery in part 2 which has been left to decay that's quite interesting!

[@Matty12333]

Is there any asbestos in the plant room?

[@cjmillsnun]

One slight correction the average domestic house has a metering capacity of 6m3 / hour (known as a U6 meter). They would normally use substantially less.

[@mrmattandmrchay]

OHHH interesting, so the comparison would be FUTHER APART than shown in this video? Interesting :) I obtained the info from my friend who is a gas boiler engineer. Thanks for the info.

[@eliotmansfield]

@@mrmattandmrchay yeh probably around half

[@Lift.Tracker]

I like the thumbnail. Lol!

[@mrmattandmrchay]

These took ABSOLUTELY AGES to edit! I themed it on Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, when they give you info about something like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n6bYnqGgf7x5hZY But unfortunately these were not very popular. I still have lots of footage from this place, but noone has ever asked me if I'm going to finish it, and I lost interest :(

[@itstheblastingcomb7087]

HOW DO YOU HET INTO SO MANY TRACTION MOTOR ROOMS I NEED TI TAKE PICTURES FOR A PROJECT I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING PLEASE RESPOND I WENT TK AN UNLOCKED MOROR ROOM TODAY AND AN ALARM WENT OFF HOW DO I DISABLE IT

[@cameronmitchell6157]

Good video

[@qeelevators2960]

WHERE IS PART 4 AHHH

[@mrmattandmrchay]

I had so little interest in these videos, part 4 never materialised I'm afraid :(

[@Colaholiker]

Are you sure the CHP units are gas _turbine_ engines? It would be a hell of a noise there and you need lots of air to operate them. I'd rather say they are piston engines that run on natural gas... At least all "smaller" units of that kind I know are of that type. Gas turbine engines for heat and power are as far as I know oly used in dedicated power stations or on some ships...

[@mrmattandmrchay]

I've researched these a fair bit and my mate is a boiler engineer and knows all about them and used to do some work in this place. All I know is, the gas is definitely used to rotate an engine which connects to a electricity generator. The "turbine" part, I'm not sure as I'd need to look up the definition of the work "turbine". The heat from the engine then replaces the conventional boiler that was there before (the CHPs were installed in about year 2000). They generated so much heat that they kept shutting down, which meant the building kept switching between the generated electricity from the CHP and the national grid power (from outside). The CHPs were designed to run the electricity most of the time, so the original idea of installing TWO CHPs was flawed.

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

hey man, I've got some footage for you at this hospital I went to, I think it might be original

[@mrmattandmrchay]

by the way, what type of footage? plant rooms or lifts? If plant rooms, I've been into hundreds, it's just this one is special as it's so old and it's all part of the "building being knocked down" video, otherwise I wouldn't be doing plant rooms :)

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

Lifts lol

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

Also I sent the video already, I think you have to watch it on Google drive

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Got it thanks but I'll have to look a little later. Thanks :)

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

Ok no problem man! Have a good day!

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

can you please email me so that I could send you the video(s)?

[@mrmattandmrchay]

Cool, thanks. How large are the files? I'm asking because normally you cannot email over 2mb and video files are normally much larger than this. Maybe use google drive and I'll send you my email via PM?

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

Sure, I'll check how large the file is

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

Yeah, lol. Its more than 2MB

[@mrmattandmrchay]

I give up with Private Messages on youtube and google+. I can't find a SEND MESSAGE on your youtube page and I cannot change Google+ from "Public" to "private" message. Can you send me a PM that I can respond to?

[@AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA]

mrmattandmrchay I think Google docs would be good, I dunno

[@InvestmentsOutgoings]

Awesome video. Right up there with some of the best engineering videos. Check out the "Commercial Gas Engineer" channel too.