Customer type

Location

Sector

Care Homes

Project Overview

A residential care home near Doncaster has significantly reduced its energy costs by installing Windhager biomass boilers, which now supply all heating and hot water.

Rock House Residential Home, a Grade II listed building and former hunting lodge of Lord Scarborough in Tickhill, replaced seven oil boilers with three Windhager BioWIN wood pellet boilers, considerably improving the efficiency of the home.

Customer Requirements

As part of the initial consultation, the care home's management team outlined a number of operational, financial and environmental objectives that the replacement heating system needed to achieve.

Providing continuous heating and domestic hot water is critical within a residential care environment, where vulnerable residents rely on a safe, warm and comfortable living environment throughout the year. The client therefore required a solution that could be installed with minimal disruption while delivering long-term improvements in efficiency, reliability and sustainability.

The customer's requirements included:

• Replacement of the ageing oil-fired heating installation with a modern renewable biomass heating system. 
• Reliable heating and domestic hot water available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 
• Reduced long-term fuel costs and improved operational efficiency. 
• Lower carbon emissions to support the organisation's environmental and sustainability objectives. 
• Increased system resilience through multiple boilers operating in a cascade arrangement. 
• Improved reliability to minimise the risk of heating failures affecting residents. 
• Retention of heating and hot water services throughout the majority of the installation programme wherever practical. 
• A plant room layout designed to improve future servicing access, maintenance efficiency and overall system management. 
• Delivery of the complete mechanical package by one experienced contractor, including design coordination, installation, testing, commissioning and final handover. 
• Comprehensive commissioning documentation together with practical operator training for the care home's maintenance personnel. 

The client required a contractor capable of understanding the additional responsibilities associated with working in an occupied healthcare environment, where careful planning, communication and health and safety are as important as the quality of the mechanical installation itself.

Our Solution

Windhager UK has worked alongside PC Kelly to install a BioWIN 180kW cascade wood pellet boiler system (which consists of three BioWIN 60kW boilers at Rock House. Established as a leading supplier of low-carbon heating solutions, Windhager’s proven wood pellet heating technology has been developed especially for the requirements of heating larger properties and is developed for maximum fuel efficiencies, safety and ease of operation.

The new system at Rock House was installed in an external biomass plant room that also houses two 1500 litre accumulators. Also accommodated is a 23-tonne wood pellet store and hopper.

Scope Of Works

Installation / Delivery Details

Project Challenges

Testing & Commissioning

Following completion of the installation, the biomass heating system underwent a comprehensive programme of testing and commissioning to verify that every component operated safely, efficiently and in accordance with the design specification before being handed over to the client.

Working alongside the biomass boiler manufacturer and specialist controls engineers, P C Kelly Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning completed a structured commissioning programme to ensure the entire heating installation functioned as a fully integrated system capable of delivering dependable heating and domestic hot water throughout the care home.

The testing and commissioning process included:

• Hydraulic pressure testing of all newly installed commercial heating pipework. 
• Full system flushing and cleaning to remove installation debris prior to final filling. 
• Water quality testing and chemical treatment to protect the heating system against corrosion and scale formation. 
• Balancing of heating distribution circuits to achieve consistent flow rates and even heat distribution throughout the building. 
• Verification of expansion vessel pressures and overall system operating pressures. 
• Functional testing of commercial circulation pumps, motorised valves and ancillary mechanical equipment. 
• Commissioning and verification of the cascade boiler control system to ensure each biomass boiler responded correctly to changing heating demands. 
• Calibration and testing of temperature sensors, pressure sensors and control instrumentation. 
• Operational testing of all heating controls and integration with the site's control strategy. 
• Safety device verification, including emergency shutdown procedures, fault indication and alarm functions. 
• Inspection of insulation, valve identification, flow direction markers and plant room labelling. 
• Continuous operational monitoring under varying load conditions to confirm stable system performance, efficiency and reliability. 

Following successful completion of all testing procedures, the installation underwent final commissioning in accordance with the biomass manufacturer's requirements and current industry standards.

P C Kelly then carried out a comprehensive client handover, providing:

• Commissioning certificates and test documentation. 
• Operating and maintenance manuals. 
• Plant room schematics and equipment information. 
• Demonstration of boiler operation and cascade controls. 
• Routine operational guidance for the care home's maintenance team. 
• Planned maintenance recommendations to maximise equipment life and maintain optimum efficiency. 

The completed renewable heating installation was successfully commissioned and placed into operation, providing the care home with a dependable, energy-efficient heating solution capable of delivering reliable comfort for residents while supporting the organisation's long-term sustainability and operational objectives.

Project Outcome

Ryan Kelly, of PC Kelly, said,

“Careful consideration of the expense involved in running seven boilers led to the decision to design and install a biomass plant room, which will help reduce the heating bills, improve the efficiency of the home and will also make it far more environmentally friendly”.

He continued, “After years of research into different makes and models of various technologies we find that Windhager is by far the more superior product on the market”.

The BioWIN boilers’ thermal controlled combustion technology enables a metered and economical output, while maintaining efficient and clean long-term operation.

The patented flexible feed system ensures that new supplies of pellets are provided automatically.

The reliability of the BioWIN means that the external location of the system has allowed Rock House’s owner, Andrew Pass, to re-allocate the four internal plant rooms used previously for the oil boilers.

“We have been able to convert one plant room into another bedroom and extend and improve our laundry facilities,” said Mr Pass. The compact Windhager systems have given Rock House both increased efficiency and improved utility of space.

Services Delivered

• Commercial Heating