West Bromwich-based Weatherite Air Conditioning Ltd (www.weatheritegroup.com)— a leading manufacturer of made-to-measure HVAC equipment — is celebrating a £10 million order, which is the biggest in its 45-year history.

It will design and manufacture 66 air conditioning units (in three phases) for a 118,000ft² data centre facility in Ireland, consisting of servers and large commercial information storage systems in six self-contained data halls, each with its own power and cooling systems.

Weatherite’s units will significantly reduce the data centre’s energy consumption, compared to any other cooling strategy.

The company has secured five other major contracts in the telecommunications and data centre market in the last six months, and it is planning a £1 million investment programme in the near future to extend its manufacturing facilities.

Chairman John Whitehouse, who started the company from scratch 45 years ago, said: “Winning this major new contract solidly anchors Weatherite in the data centre market, and we are delighted with our achievements over the past year — especially as Weatherite Air Conditioning has been so successful.

“The turnover for this part of the business has increased by £6 million during the last 12 months. We currently employ 170 local people, and our employee retention is exceptional, with 40% of our staff working at the company for more than 10 years.”