White House Sluice Gate, Hertfordshire, UK

Project Overview

The historic White House Sluice gate recently underwent essential upgrades, featuring 55mm mini mesh d² Dura Grating and d² Dura Profile 203 channel. The lightweight, durable design provides a secure walkway, structural bracing, and a long-lasting, non-corrosive surface — ensuring the preservation of this historic site for years to come.

Upgrades were undertaken to guarantee safe maintenance.

The New River in Hertfordshire serves as a crucial aqueduct for London’s water supply, delivering a staggering 220 megalitres (equivalent to 48 million gallons) daily for treatment. This accounts for approximately 8 percent of London’s daily water consumption. To ensure the seamless regulation of water levels in the New River, sluice gates are employed to meet the demands of the various pumping stations and reservoirs.

One historical feature within the Hertfordshire section, the White House Sluice gate, boasts over two centuries of history, but required extensive restoration to keep it operating at its best. An unassuming yet prominent timber-clad structure, it housed the equipment necessary for controlling water levels in the river, and still holds the original local stone gauge.

In this project by AOV Systems on behalf of HBS Construct, a series of essential upgrades were undertaken to guarantee the safe maintenance of the sluice gate. This included the installation of 55mm mini mesh d² Dura Grating and d² Dura Profile 203 channel within the building. The GRP grating served to create a secure walkway and a lockable access hatch, further supported by the GRP profile, which provided the necessary structural bracing for the flooring.

Well known for its outstanding performance-to-weight ratio, d² Dura Grating has a unique design that’s up to 33% lighter than other GRP grating, meaning it puts less stress on the substructure, perfect for older and historic preservation sites such as this one. The small mesh hole sizes prevent objects falling through and yet still allow for visual inspection of the area beneath. Both the grating and profile also require little to no maintenance over the course of their long lifecycle, ensuring a non-corrosive, slip-resistant surface for years to come.

This was a great project for us at AOV Systems, made all the more fascinating by the historical significance of the building and our paramount objective to handle it with the utmost sensitivity to guarantee its preservation for generations to come. We were really impressed with the GRP grating and structural beam sections from Dura Composites as well as with how easy they were to deal with as a company. Any question we had about fitting the materials was met with a prompt and efficient response, showcasing their commitment to customer satisfaction. We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with them again on future projects.

Gary Steel

Director at AOV Systems

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