One of the first installations of ACO’s new smaller Qmax sizes has just been completed within a car park at Oxford Brookes University.

The 22 metre run of Qmax 225 slot drain prevents surface water ponding in a service car park on the University’s Harcourt Hill Campus – a location that had been prone to flooding and which, under heavy rainfall conditions, had led to water ingress into a number of adjacent lecture rooms.


Qmax 225, one of two new smaller sizes of the award winning Qmax slot drainage system recently launched by ACO, is designed for just such small to medium catchment areas. It has a circular bore of 225mm and is fitted with ACO’s patented Continuous Pavement Beam Inlet which allows an unbroken reinforced slab to be cast around and through the inlet without breaking the line of the finished surface slot. The slot itself – in this application the '‘heelguard' edge rail option has been used - is just 10mm wide, removing any risk to pedestrians and minimising the visual impact on the finished surface and surroundings.

Contractor Southern Construction & Surfacing Limited completed the installation in one day, despite bad weather conditions and never having used the Qmax system before.

(CL)