Steadings Park, a campsite and caravan touring park in Suffolk, recently installed a Grant Spira biomass boiler as an environmentally friendly, cost efficient solution to heating their newly built state-of-the-art shower block.
Located near a nature reserve in the beautiful back-drop of the Suffolk countryside, Steadings Park’s 15 acres is the home of 60 well-spaced pitches for campers. The park built a luxury new shower block and when deciding what type of heating would be most suitable for this development, Damon Jones, the park’s owner, wanted to achieve economic and environmental sustainability.
“The idea of being environmentally friendly was important to us”, writes Damon, “but so too was the importance of reducing the huge and ever increasing amounts we spend on fuel every year, so achieving both in the same solution was Nirvana”.
Damon had heard excellent reports of the work carried out by East Green Energy. Based in Woodbridge, Suffolk, East Green Energy is a Grant approved G-One installer for biomass boilers, as well as being MCS accredited.
Damon contacted East Green Energy to arrange a survey and receive advice about the best practical, economical and environmentally-friendly solution for supplying the campsite with adequate hot water. When on site, East Green Energy encouraged Damon to consider a biomass boiler as an excellent source of renewable energy, as it would not only supply hot water to the new shower block, but it would also heat the main house and supply their hot water too.
A biomass boiler performs much like an oil or gas appliance but, rather than using fossil fuels, it burns wood in the form of pellets, chips or logs (the most popular being wood pellets). Wood pellets are produced from recycled or virgin timber from managed resources. Consisting of compressed raw materials, pellets deliver high combustion when burnt, so it soon became apparent that this type of heating appliance would be a very economical solution to Steadings Park.
Wood pellet boilers, such as the Grant Spira, use advanced controls, which regulate the amount of fuel being fed to the burner to match the heat demand of the boiler. This award winning, fully automatic, self-cleaning boiler features a condensing heat exchanger which means it operates at exceptional efficiency levels.
The current LPG boiler supplying the shower block and separate heating system in the main house was costing Steadings Park in excess of £3,000pa. By replacing these with a Grant Spira biomass boiler, the anticipated running costs would be £1,900pa – a significant saving.
Furthermore, East Green Energy explained to Damon the benefits of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) available for commercial installations. The Non-Domestic RHI is a Government programme which provides financial incentives to industrial, commercial, public sector and not-for-profit organisations to encourage the uptake of renewable heat. Using a meter, a tariff – which is index linked – is paid to the owner over 20 years. East Green Energy predicted that a biomass boiler would generate Steadings Park over £2,500pa via the RHI, an income that superseded the running costs. Consequently, the Installers anticipated that Steadings Park would recuperate the £13,000 investment within six years from date of installation (under the terms and rates of the commercial RHI scheme at the time).
Once a full survey was undertaken, a Grant Spira 9-36kW condensing wood pellet boiler was specified and installed. Now, no matter how many campers are visiting, no one is short on hot water. The reliability of the system was critical and, so far, Damon has been delighted with the Spira and the service provided by East Green Energy. Damon says, “This is a confusing market with much contradictory advice. East Green Energy cut through the conflicting material and provided sound advice that saved us considerable time and unnecessary costs.”
For more details on the Spira and other Grant renewable products, visit www.grantuk.com
