West Heanton Care Home
Care home saves 80% on its heating costs with 100kW biomass boiler in district heating scheme
Key Facts
Location
Beaworthy, Devon
Project included
- Guntamatic 100kW Powerchip boiler system including flue and thermal store
- Replaces six oil boilers and heats four separate buildings in a district heating scheme
Client managed
- Distribution pipework including internal connections to heat exchangers
- Building a high specification, custom-built boiler house & fuel store
Fuel consumption
Approximately 37 tonnes of wood chips and miscanthus per annum
Fuel cost saving
Miscanthus and wood chips saves up to 80% vs heating oil
CO₂ saving
Approximately 35 tonnes per annum vs heating oil
RHI payments
A project of this size would gain approximately £11,000 every year for 20 years, index linked to inflation
ROI
5-6 years (combining RHI income & fuel cost saving)
Total project cost
£75,000
Downloads
Treco’s support throughout the project was excellent. They gave us great advice, project management and support from the initial design phase to installation. They even managed our RHI application for us! Now that we are happy with the system, we plan to install Guntamatic systems at two additional sites
Overview
West Heanton Ltd is a family-run care home and domiciliary care agency in rural North Devon. The care home was converted from a beautiful old farm house. It has grown and expanded to provide care for twenty three residents as well as seven sheltered living apartments and care in people’s own homes.
The challenge
The primary requirements for this care home provider were high levels of reliable, constant heat and resident comfort. The six existing oil boilers needed to be replaced with a single biomass boiler, providing heating and hot water to four separate buildings. Treco was tasked with designing and installing a biomass system, working in partnership with the care home’s heating engineer.
Our custom solution
Treco supplied and installed a single 100kW Guntamatic Powerchip biomass boiler feeding a district heating scheme. The boiler and fuel store were installed in a converted barn with all of the buildings linked using insulated underground pipe. All fuel is sourced locally and processed directly into the fuel store.
The client was responsible for the construction of the boiler house and fuel store. Treco installed and commissioned the biomass boiler, working with the care home’s heating engineer to connect to the current system.
The district heating scheme included:
- A top of the range 100kW Guntamatic Powerchip biomass boiler
- A fully automated fuel delivery system
- 5m agitator allowing 75m3 of fuel storage to minimise the number of fills per year
- 3.75m auger
- A 3,000 litre thermal store
- High efficiency, low energy modulating main system pump
- 160m of twin underground pre-insulated pipe
- 2 x class 2 RHI eligible ultrasonic heat meters complete with certification
- 5 heat exchanger assemblies
- Full assistance with RHI application including schematic drawings
- Commissioning, programming and end user training
More details on this specific biomass boiler used on this installation can be found on the Guntamatic Powerchip page, with further details of our entire range available through the biomass boilers page.
The incentive
A project of this size would gain approximately £11,000 every year for 20 years, index linked to inflation.