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The fire began in a small storage yard behind the accommodation and spread through neighbouring workshops and warehousing before reaching the residential blocks. Firefighters battled the incident for four and a half days, using the accommodation blocks as part of the strategy to contain the fire.
The heat exploded many of the rear windows, allowing fire into some third-floor rooms. Flames reached the timber beneath the eaves and spread into the loft, destroying roof joists and causing the roof to collapse.
At the same time, the water needed to control the fire saturated walls, floors and ceilings on every level. Chipboard kitchens swelled beyond repair, fitted wardrobes and cupboards were damaged, and soot carried into the buildings contaminated fabrics and furnishings.
Three four-storey blocks were affected. Each contained eight apartments, with six bedrooms and a communal kitchen in each apartment. That meant 56 bedrooms per block and 168 bedrooms across the project.
At that scale, the drying method could not be chosen room by room. The original project assessment concluded that conventional dehumidification would require around 12 weeks for each drying phase. A hydronic system using heated air and positive pressure was selected instead so multiple apartments could be treated at the same time.
Two hydronic heaters were deployed, each supplying six heat exchangers. Within each apartment, one exchanger was positioned at the kitchen window to introduce heated air and create positive pressure, while a second unit at the far end of the corridor reheated and recirculated the air.
Broken windows were temporarily repaired, then controlled venting was retained so moisture-laden air had a route out of the building. This turned each apartment into a managed drying environment rather than relying on isolated dehumidifiers.
The accommodation was dried in five phases, with each phase completed in seven days. Across the three affected blocks, the full drying programme was completed in 35 days.
The contemporary project comparison estimated that conventional dehumidifier drying would have required 84 days for each phase. On that basis, the hydronic approach reduced each phase by 77 days and avoided a much longer sequential drying programme.
Drying was only one part of the wider recovery. Once the buildings had been dried, the roof reinstated and the interiors cleaned and redecorated, the accommodation could return to use and students were able to move back in.
For a project involving 168 bedrooms, the significance of the drying strategy was therefore not simply faster moisture removal. It compressed a major part of the recovery programme so the subsequent restoration work could move forward much sooner.
