Alston House Care Home is a brand new, state-of-the-art care facility offering residential, dementia and nursing care and short breaks, all from within a luxury environment.

Project Background

The four-storey building features 80 en-suite bedrooms with exceptional communal living areas, dining rooms and quiet spaces.

Built on the former landmark Eastleigh Police Station, the integrity of the original listed building has been retained and has become close care apartments, a family room, community shop and cafe.

The design of the care home is centric for the residents and encourages a sense of community, providing a warm, reassuring environment whilst protecting dignity. The ground floor is welcoming, with ambient lighting and soft furnishings that guide both residents and visitors through an easily accessible plaza leading into seating areas and a cafe.

Safety for residents, staff & visitors

We designed, supplied and installed a MERCURY ATLAS underfloor heating system in this area where residents, staff and visitors can enjoy a constant ambient temperature of 23°c, controlled via Heatmiser Slimline thermostats. Usually in care facilities, tamper-proof thermostats are specified, however in this case the programmable thermostats were chosen to be discreetly hidden behind screens.

Specially designed assisted bathrooms are situated on the ground floor and each of the 3 remaining upper floors. Here we installed a MERCURY AURORA castellated panel underfloor heating system to remove the risk of hot surface injury to residents. AURORA is a nice system to install as the panels interlock, eliminating the need for staples or other fixings and can be laid on top of the acoustic floor detail. 16mm MERCURY underfloor heating pipe was then placed in continuous loops, spaced at 50mm intervals at 200mm centres.

Underfloor heating lends itself well to care facilities where occupant safety is of paramount importance and where aesthetic design is a critical aspect of the specification.