Specialist Pipe Manufacturer Expands its Hampshire Operation

Located in East Wellow, near Romsey, the 8.5-acre site has been home to the company and its 40 employees since it was acquired in the mid-1990s. The expansion of the facility is due to an increase in sales for all products, but in particular, its pre-insulated steel and plastic pipe systems used in district heating applications.

District heating is a simple concept in which a centralised boiler (or other source of hot water) feeds a number of homes and businesses via a network of buried, highly-insulated pipes. This provides an efficient source of heating and hot water and removes the need for each property to have its own boiler.

This concept, which is very popular in Scandinavian countries, has been recognised by the UK Government as a technology that can make a significant contribution to the reduction of carbon emissions from the built environment. Although there are a number of high profile systems already in operation throughout the UK - in areas such as Southampton, London’s Olympic Park, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield; there has been an increase in the uptake of the technology by site owners and developers wishing to reduce their carbon emissions and lower the costs for consumers. This has led to a greater demand for CPV’s range of products.

Mark Whettall, the company’s managing director, commented: “This growth in the market has resulted in us needing to increase both our production and stockholding facilities with additional space - in excess of some 3,500 square metres. This means that we’ll be able to supply many more orders directly from stock, speeding up the way in which we can service our customers’ projects – as timescales are usually critical – particularly when they are digging-up busy city streets or residential areas.”

“This similarly means that we have had to scale-up our project and engineering teams to support this additional work - complete with the remodelling and refurbishment of our offices, training and presentation suites. I realise that we are very fortunate to be in a position of needing to expand our business during these tough economic times – but the growth in the low-carbon energy sector is really bucking the trend that most other industry sectors are experiencing.”

He continued: “It’s an exciting time for the district heating industry; after decades of promotion and lobbying, the technology has finally got its due recognition and a heat strategy document - published earlier this year by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) - clearly underlines the role that district heating will play in lowering greenhouse gas emissions. ”

“This is not only good for our company, but our regional economy and the wider UK energy sector as we start to pave the way for carbon reduction technologies.”