Case Studies Archive

The farmhouse at Willow Farm, had been heated by a 100,000Btu (30kW) LPG fired boiler located inside the house. This boiler provided both heating to radiators and domestic hot water, typically costing around £5,000 per annum to run.

This high running cost made the client consider the use of woodchip, as a heating fuel, obtained from his own sources.

The client was keen to have the boiler installation as unobtrusive as possible and he wanted a woodchip store constructed in a separate building to where the boiler would be located, which itself was some 40m from the house. In addition he wanted the boiler to provide heat to a large garage/workshop located behind the house.

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Manormead Nursing Home in Hindhead, Surrey is owned by The Church of England Pensions Board with the original building dating back to the 1920’s.

In the autumn of 2007 a new purpose built extension will be opened. The builders of this extension, in line with a request by the Pensions Board, were eager to deploy some form of renewable energy on site.

Many renewable technologies were considered, however biomass heating was seen as offering the most cost effective and practical solution. Asgard Biomass was asked to provide detailed proposals for a suitable biomass heating system.

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The farmhouse and outdoor swimming pool, at Baydon Hole Farm, had been heated by a 100,000Btu (30kW) oil fired boiler located inside the house. This boiler provided both heating to radiators and domestic hot water and pool heating in the summer, typically costing around £3,500 per annum to run.

This high running cost made the owner consider the use of woodchip, as a heating fuel, obtained from his own woodlands.

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Ashley C of E Primary School in Walton-on-Thames consists of a main school building containing the assembly hall, classrooms, canteen and offices, with 2 other buildings both housing classrooms only. Each building had its own gas fired boiler providing both space heating and hot water.

The main building has a boiler room in its basement, which until early 2007 had two gas boilers; one for the provision of hot water via a calorifier, the other providing space heating. During February 2007 the heating boiler completely failed, leaving the school to rely on portable electric radiators to provide back up heating. This proved to be both expensive and inadequate, and the school looked to install a new boiler for the following winter.

With a general increasing awareness of environmental issues and the need to look to alternative fuels, the school decided to consider the installation of a biomass boiler.

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The nursery covers an area of approximately 5,000m2 and grows predominately hothouse flowers such as poinsettias. Heating of the glasshouses was provided by 3 No. 240kW gas fired boilers consuming on average 1,000,000kWh of energy per year. The owners of the nursery, concerned with ever increasing fossil fuel costs and security of supply were looking for alternative heating sources.

With access to large quantities of free baled cardboard consideration was given to using this as a possible fuel source. Asgard was approached to design, manufacture and install a bespoke boiler plant suitable for burning cardboard.

Although the resulting plant was successfully installed and commissioned by Asgard, changes in the interpretation of the Waste Incineration Directive (WID) made the continued use of this plant not commercially viable. For further information regarding this go to:

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040720/debtext/40720-49.htm

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Grange Farm at Surlingham near Norwich in Norfolk is an arable farm run by E H Mack & Son Ltd. The farm produces a range of crops, including rapeseed and wheat and has located on site an indoor swimming pool that is open to the public.

Asgard Biomass was asked to visit site to assess the possibility of using a biomass boiler to replace the existing oil and straw fired boilers that were providing heat to the pool and farmhouse.

In addition Asgard was also asked to consider whether it was viable to heat a number of buildings occupied by tenants on site via a district heating system. These buildings consisted of a bungalow, a double dweller and triple dweller houses, all of which were heated by electric storage heaters.

The reason why biomass heating was being considered by the farm’s owners was that in recent years the cost of heating oil had increased and the straw fired boiler was starting to show signs of age. Also the farm was considering the idea of being able to sell heat to its tenants. It was considered that biomass fuels could offer a cheaper source of heating than conventional fossil fuels.

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