Care home opts for biomass boilers

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.

Windhager UK has worked alongside PC Kelly Plumbing & Heating (Rotherham) Ltd 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 is 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. Ryan Kelly, of PC Kelly Plumbing & Heating (Rotherham) Ltd, 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.

Available in outputs of 35kW, 45kW, and 60kW and in a cascade version up to 240kW, the high output BioWIN Excel is the ideal heating solution for large buildings, hotels, schools, public buildings, apartment blocks, care homes and district heating systems. The installation at Rock House was at the coldest time of the year, yet the longest downtime for the central heating was only eight hours. The BioWIN system is both versatile and flexible, equipped for use with other systems. It is also available as a pre-packaged plant room for a total turn key solution for an energy efficient renewable heating solution.