A new £142 million (€167 million) hospital in Calais, France will house a maternity ward and operating theatre. It has a capacity for 450 additional beds and provides its patients with the latest in high-tech facilities.
Alongside advanced technology and facilities there is the potential to expand the hospital into the 20 hectare park in which it is located. Patients have WIFI access and a system of radiant ceiling panels enables the hospital to maintain a constant temperature throughout the year.

Missenard Quint (Coquelles), one of France's largest specialists for building equipment and energy efficiency, was awarded with the construction of the hospital piping system, working alongside subcontractor Artmeca and engineering consultant IOSIS Nord.

Only three months were allocated for the cooling distribution piping and the piping system in the mechanical room.

By calling on the Victaulic Construction Piping Services (CPS) department`s project management service and bag-and-tag service, the Calais Hospital team was able to save a significant amount of construction time. The contractor gave the schematic drawings, architectural drawings and equipment technical data to the CPS team, which used this data to finalise the piping layout, isometric view, cut length list for prefabrication and indications on the construction drawing.

Once the drawings were ready, the Victaulic CPS project team managed the piping installation from start to finish and provided a 'bag-and-tag' system. Products were delivered to the site in the correct quantities, on the right floor of the building, just where and when they needed to be used. Prefabricating some of the products (on-site) also meant that production could still continue, while the floor of the mechanical room was still being finished, again saving time.

Artmeca was responsible for providing and installing the products defined in the bills of material produced by CPS. Pierre Couty, Director at Artmeca said: 'We chose the Victaulic mechanical groove system over traditional welding mainly because of the tight timeframe. It would have been impossible to meet the construction deadlines, had we been obliged to weld all the joints.'

The whole piping system was completed using a range of Victaulic rigid couplings, flexible couplings, flange adaptors, elbows, concentric reducers and tee fittings, as well as motorised butterfly valves of up to 300mm diameter on the cooling water system.

Expensive rubber bellows on the pump outlets were replaced by Victaulic flexible couplings, which are said to be faster and easier to install. Using the mechanical groove system, Artmeca was able to cut overall construction time by 30 per cent and reduce the total installation cost by 15 per cent.

Installation of the piping system was successfully completed within the three month deadline and the first patients moved into the hospital facilities in September 2012.

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