Background

Located in Ealing, just five minutes from the Ealing Broadway Centre, Eden Fitness is a health and fitness club with 2,800 members. The gym has state-of-the-art fitness equipment, resistance machines and free weights plus a stunning 20m swimming pool, sauna, steam room and spa pool. Opened in 2007, Eden Fitness prioritises the needs and experience of its members and is continually investing in its facilities to maintain its high standards.

As part of this investment in the facilities, Eden Fitness is undergoing a rolling programme of maintenance and refurbishment of its member changing areas. The gym opens daily from 6am until 11pm, so the changing facilities are in continuous use 17 hours a day, 7 days a week. With such a high volume of users, the products used in the changing rooms need to be robust and reliable while delivering the premier experience members expect from Eden.

Solution Providers

Charlie Bourne, Managing Director at Eden Fitness said: “Most of our members will use the showers after their workout or class, so they can be used up to 500 times a day. That’s a lot of wear and tear on fixtures and fittings, and although we were having them serviced regularly, our previous showers were becoming less reliable so the only option was to replace them.”

With the existing showers coming to the end of their service life, Eden Fitness contacted Bristan about the specification and installation of replacement shower valves. The valves would need to be stylish to fit in with the décor of the gym, but robust enough to cope with the large volume of daily users.

Charlie continued: “Bristan recommended their OPAC thermostatic mixing valve shower from its commercial range. Unlike other commercial showers we’d seen, the OPAC is stylish and doesn’t look like something you’d find in a hospital, and its strongly built without being vandal proof, which would not at all be reflective of our membership.”

Built to last

Bristan’s OPAC showers range is designed exclusively for the commercial market. Suitable for sports and leisure, hospitality, education and healthcare settings, OPAC showers are designed to be safe in operation, thanks to their TMV3 rated thermostatic mixing valves, which will automatically shut off in the event of a hot or cold water failure.

Having agreed the specification for the OPAC shower valves, Bristan replaced 15 units in Eden Fitness’ changing rooms – seven in the men’s changing area, and eight in the women’s changing suite.

Peace of mind

To minimise disruption to members, the installation was done by Bristan engineers in a single day. This limited time frame for fitting was achievable because each of the gym’s showers had its own isolation valve, so the water supply could be shut off to one at a time. The showers come with fast fix wallmount connections, saving further time on installation.

Once the showers were installed Bristan advised on a service plan which would keep the fixtures in top condition.

Charlie continued: “To maintain the optimum performance of the showers, Bristan suggested that we upped our service agreement to get them serviced three times a year. This made a lot of sense due to the high usage of the showers, and will help us to minimise unexpected downtime and ensure our members always have access to working showers after their workout.”

Ian Ward from Bristan said: “A regular household shower for a family of four will be used around six times a day, which equates to 2,190 uses a year. Compare this to a commercial shower, like the ones at Eden Fitness, and you are looking at annual usage of more than 180,000 uses. A shower mixer valve is a mechanical device with moving parts, so with that kind of commercial usage, regular servicing is vital to maintaining optimum performance, reliability and safety.”

Charlie concluded: “The showers are performing really well and our members are very happy with what we have put in. For us, I think the selling point for the showers has really been the service that has come with them. Bristan have understood what we are trying to achieve at Eden Fitness and have created a product and service package which meets our needs. They are always at the other end of the phone, and any issues are always dealt with promptly. That’s the service we expect from our suppliers and this allows us to uphold the standards of service our members expect from us.”

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