Students and staff of the school of engineering at WIT had a great day out in the Coastguard Cultural Centre in Tramore on Wednesday 24th January where the building is being used as the basis of student projects as part of coursework in building services, sustainable energy and electrical engineering.
The building is a shared facility operated by the Tramore Development Trust (TDT) and the Irish coast guard service and was extensively refurbished and restored in 2002 by the OPW.
Staff at the Coast guard culutal centre Pam Eustace, Mick Cullen & Frank Reilly were on hand to assist the students with the building information.
The building services engineering students are working on a ventilation proposal for a new kitchen area, energy metering of the electricity supply and.
The electrical engineering students are investigating the electrical requirements of extending the existing electricity supply to accommodate the new kitchen equipment as well as a proposed lighting layout for the gallery area.
The sustainable energy engineering students are proposing to replace the existing oil boilers with a more sustainable heat pump solution, investigating the viability of adding a glazed sunspace to the south façade of the building to increase the usable ground floor area to accommodate greater café space and proposing a concept for a stand-alone office pod which will operate as an autonomous/ off grid building to accommodate two office staff.
WIT staff assisting the students on the day included Colm Tynan, course leader for the level 8 degree in sustainable energy engineering, Mervin Doyle, course leader for the level 9 in sustainable engineering, Dave Williams, year tutor for the level 7 degree in electrical engineering and Tom O’Brien, course leader for the level 7 degree in Building services engineering.
The work being undertaken by the students’ forms part of their semester 2 continuous assessment work for their respective courses and the students will present their findings to Anne Harper, Chairperson of the Coastguard Cultural Arts Centre and Louise Grubb of TDT in March 2018. Hopefully some of the findings presented from the student work will assist TDT to make a successful application to SEAI for funding to improve the energy performance of the coast guard building and build on the service provided to the community of Tramore by such an exceptional landmark building…and the coffee and cakes were just fab, thanks Pam!!!
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SETU Waterford, Cork Road, Waterford City, 
