SI Suites in Stuttgart

Renovation of a hotel building during ongoing operation with Proline ENERGY surface heating

The SI Centre on the south side of Stuttgart is home to the legendary Stage Apollo and Stage Palladium musical theatres, which are visited by around two million guests each year. Anyone attending Mary Poppins or the Dance of the Vampires who wants to remain overnight will enjoy staying at the Si Suites built in 1997. The hotel building with 192 rooms and apartments has been progressively renovated since October 2015 while remaining in operation.

     

The building complex consists of four wings or blocks, the main building and the hotel infrastructure in block A, as well as blocks B, C and D, which are the main hotel room buildings. The internal fittings as well the themed apartments were understandably no longer up-to-date after 18 years. Hotel rooms and bathrooms have been and are being gutted and redesigned with a new room concept. The Proline ENERGY surface heating system has been used for implementing the bathroom renovations, as this system is idea for the straightforward conversion of radiators to floor heating.
 

Implementation planning

In the initial discussions with the operator, the architect Susanne Sulzbach and the trades involved such as tilers and heating installers, it quickly became apparent when renovating the heating technology in the bathrooms that new ways had to be found here to be able to implement the renovation required in block A while the hotel was still operating. The challenge was in effecting the change from radiators to floor heating in such a way that both trades could work independently of one another.The use of the standard return flow temperature limiter valve in this case assumes the heating pipe is already in place at the time of the conversion, in order to allow the connection of this valve with the press coupling in the floor. A coupling in the pipe string of the floor heating is also a weak point that cannot be checked later, and which should be avoided for re-installations.

The solution forms a newly designed individual room distribution station, fitted with two distribution beams for the advance and return flows, with an actuator as well as a fixed value controller. Each distribution beam has a shut-off valve so that the advance and return flows for the radiator in question can be directly connected there. With the closed shut-off valve pressure can be applied regularly and without disruption to the risers for heating the building.

The tilers can now install the Proline ENERGY BasicLine floor heating in the floor via dry building and connect the heating pipe with the Eurocone to the distribution station. The floor heating in dry construction form is the only reasonable solution here to meet all the economic requirements of the operator:

Economic factors for the hotelier

• Increased energy savings due to controllability at night and when the guests are not present
• As little downtime in the hotel room as possible (by not using screed floor and the drying time this involves)
• Security of planning due to times taken individual trades which can be calculated
• In total: Extremely short construction period and maximum energy savings in operation

The energy supply of the entire SI Centre comes from a block thermal power station that provides hot service water, heating and electric power. Block A of the SI Suites, which has since been completed, can now be supplied using a lower common advance flow temperature for radiators in the rooms and the dry floor heating in the bathrooms. This measure is a decisive factor to make considerable energy savings, which can be reliably quantified after a year of operation.

After the successful implementation in block A, tiling company Fliesen Bubeck GmbH from Aichtal, and the air-conditioning company Andreas Lutz, also continued to renovate block D, which was completed on time in late summer 2016, with a total of 192 rooms and suites.

The floor structure is usually the same in all bathrooms, with a surface area of around 4 m²:
 

• The existing tile flooring and the screed floor are removed.
• The EPS pipe holder plates with C2 thin-bed adhesive are laid on the levelled subsurface.
• The multilayer connecting pipe in 16 x 2 mm format is laid and connected to the distribution station.
• A glass fibre sound insulation plate and reinforcing steel mesh are glued on with a special dispersion fixing across the entire floor surface.
• To increase the capacity, a 5 mm think load distribution plate made of polyester fibre is laid using a C2 thin-bed adhesive.
• The seal and ceramic covering can then be conventionally placed on top of this.

The work flow quickly became a routine for both trade teams. The security of planning for the floor structure could also be approached in such a way that the implementation of the renovation work was clearly defined due to the constantly repeated work processes, and an extremely high quality could therefore be ensured.

Comfort highlights in the SI Suites thanks to Proline ENERGY

Due to smart networking between the reception, building services and room staff, communication has been improved considerably in the SI Suites within the hotel with the help of a “housekeeping app”, which can be installed on staff smartphones. The staff can find information at any time about the current status of the rooms and their occupancy, and therefore optimise the progression of cleaning and maintenance processes. The time saved can be used beneficially for individual service.
For the efficient use of floor heating this means, for example, that the heating can also be reduced if the room is unoccupied by the guest for a long period or once they have checked out. In future, the management is going one step further and will offer an app when checking in, with which the guest can control the heating as well as the TV, Internet, lights and curtains. The event character of the SI Centre therefore continues into the details of the hotel stay.

The precondition for this comfort is of course that a quick-response heating system is installed. But these conditions are now met by the Si Suites thanks to the Proline ENERGY surface heating.
 

Conclusion

The renovation measures for the SI Suites make it clear that the basis of successful renovation during continued operation lies in the effective interlocking of the trades. There is potential and opportunity in this for the tiling trade of the future. Proline ENERGY means worthwhile additional business that can sustainably increase the economy of a craft company. Incidentally, the tiling specialists involved here, Bubeck GmbH, took part in a two-day system trade workshop by Proline Systems GmbH on the topic of dry surface heating, which focused on the requirements of the market.