The new Tenant® Valve Assembly from Reliance Water Controls: Smarter, Streamlined Water Control for Multi-Unit Sites
 All sectors of the building industry - contractors, consultants and manufacturers - have for many years focused on using engineering expertise and innovative thinking to make things simple. Prefabricated building of large commercial, institutional and other projects is now commonplace, because this is an easier, faster and cheaper method of construction. Pod bathrooms fabricated at specialist facilities are dropped into place in a prefab building by crane, almost completely finished, with only water and waste connections to be made by a plumber. And in the housing and flat building sector, great importance is placed on saving space as well as on time and building costs.
Reliance has used experience and knowledge of water controls and the building industry to review how the water controls for a house, block of flats or offices or any other multi-unit structure can be improved.
Considering that the inlet controls for any property, be it a house, flat or office, are almost always in a very tight, small space like a ceiling void, access panel or under a cabinet, it seemed vital to make the inlet controls as compact and easy to install as possible. Reliance’s response is the Tenant Valve Assembly - a compact, low-cost, combination valve assembly designed to control the incoming water services to a block of flats, offices or any other multiple-unit building. The concept of the Tenant Valve Assembly emerged because most multi-unit buildings, whether residential or commercial, require that an isolating valve and a double check valve be fitted at the entrance to the unit. And in a high proportion of cases it is common practice to install pressure reducing valves and secondary water meters at this point as well. The idea behind the development of the Tenant Valve Assembly was simple: if all these valves are being fitted anyway, why not incorporate them into one compact unit and supply ‘ready to fit’?
 Since its first inception, Reliance’s Tenant Valve Assembly has undergone improvements and refinement to best meet the demands of the system designer, installer and end user. In the new model the biggest change is to the orientation of the various components. Two critical concerns for the system designer are access for maintenance and maximising the available space because in any multi-unit building floor space is money and space taken up by services is money down the drain. With this in mind the latest version of the Tenant Valve Assembly has been designed with all of the components on the same side of the valve: the isolator, pressure reducing valve, water meter port, pressure gauge and check valves are all in line unlike the previous version where the water meter connection and pressure reducing valve opposed each other. This means that the valve can be fitted side by side with very little clearance as no side access is necessary for service. All the benefits of previous versions have been kept. The assembly prevents backflow, provides isolation, controls water pressure, smoothes out pressure surges, and allows for the fitting of a secondary water meter. Incorporating these components into one unit significantly reduces installation time, while the cartridge type construction makes maintenance easier and the compact design economises on space. The cartridge style construction allows for easy maintenance and replacement of components if necessary.
Although in most installations an isolating valve and a double check valve will be fitted and a very high proportion also have a pressure reducing valve, secondary water meters are not so widely needed. Feedback from the market has shown that only around 30 % of the installations require a water meter fitted as standard although 100 % of customers like the idea of being able to fit one as an option.
 With this in mind, Reliance has designed the Tenant Valve Assembly with the option of fitting a water meter and capped off the meter connection point. Should a meter be required then the cap can be removed and a precalibrated water meter cartridge inserted. If a pulse output meter is preferred, then an optional clip-on pulse output cap can be retrofitted to the meter.
 There are many areas where local authorities or water supply companies require that a Class ‘D’ primary charging meter be fitted on each individual unit. An important new improvement to the new model is the addition of an adaptor bush which Reliance can supply, to allow the connection of a class “D” water meter to the water meter connection port of the Tenant Valve Assembly. In these cases, Reliance would supply the adaptor bush, and the water supply company the Class ‘D’ meter.
If you would like further information or to order the new Tenant Valve Assembly please contact our Sales department:
Freephone (UK only): 0800 389 5931
Telephone - Rest of World: +44 (0) 1386 712400
Freefax (UK only): 0800 389 5932
Fax - Rest of World: +44 (0) 1386 47028
Email: sales@rwc.co.uk
Web: www.rwc.co.uk
Eric Winter, Technical Manager
September 2007
©Reliance Water Controls Ltd 2007
Tenant© Valve Assembly is a trademark of Reliance Water Controls Limited
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