Retirement Units, East Sussex

Air Source Heat Pump For Retirement Units

A Greener Alternative were asked to design and install an Air Source Heat Pump and associated components into two new build retirement units in East Sussex. The NIBE F2040 heat pump is situated on the external wall of the property and provides all the requirement for heating and hot water in the home.

With the heat pump installed the home has a highly efficient heating system and low energy consumption with the 8kW heat pump carrying an A+++ Energy Efficiency Class.

NIBE VIP_small

West Sussex Home

Solar thermal for heating swimming pool

The owners of this house situated in West Sussex found they were spending large amounts of money heating their outdoor swimming pool and wanted a more sustainable solution.

A Greener Alternative supplied and installed an array of solar thermal panels on the roof of the main property to take care of the heating requirements of the pool and also to supplement the hot water in the main property.

The owners now enjoy hugely reduced heating bills and a longer pool season over the summer!

Hindhead Home

KWB Easyfire domestic biomass install in Hindhead, Surrey

This install took place at a detached family home in Hindhead, Surrey where the property owners were looking to move away from their existing oil fueled heating system and expressed an interest in biomass as an alternative.

A Greener Alternative specified a 35kW KWB Easyfire pellet boiler with an 800 litre buffer vessel to take care of all the heating and hot water requirements in the family home.

Several options were discussed for a potential boiler location and the garden offered plenty of space to create a new structure to house the boiler, buffer and pellet store and the homeowners expressed an interest in pursuing this route.

A purpose built boiler room shed was constructed in the garden with enough room to house the boiler, buffer and a bespoke pellet store that was designed and constructed to fit within the shed whilst maximising pellet storage space. The Storz hose connectors can be seen at the rear of the shed where fuel delivery hoses are connected and pellets are blown into the store.

The family now enjoy a seamless changeover from their old oil system but with the benefit of lower costing, carbon neutral fuel.

Buxted Home

RHI payment over 7 years: £20,566.00
Fuel saving over 7 years: £7,472.00

This rural 4 bedroom home is a typical example of a domestic installation of a pellet fuel boiler system. The pellet fuel acts as a direct replacement to oil and behaves in the same way, with fillings simply completed by the roadside through a blown delivery. The property owners, although living rurally, do not have a lifestyle suited to using log or chip so pellet is an ideal option. The heat load of this property is typical for a property of this size and period.

A Greener Alternative fitted a 22kw KWB Easyfire pellet boiler to provide hot water and heating to the main building. As you can see from the photos, the thermal store, pellet store and boiler are all located in different sites, which is a good solution to this particular heating system, but not entirely typical.

The boiler is housed in an outbuilding, 10 metres away from the property. The pellet store is a 3.5 tonne stand alone, which is hidden away behind the outbuilding. The thermal store is located in an outside cupboard attached to the property.

Rural Farm

RHI payment over 20 years: £186,425
Fuel saving over 20 years: £185,425

This rural farm wanted to reduce their oil bills, so opted to take advantage of the government incentives by switching to biomass heating. They chose wood chip, due to the sustainable source of chip in the local area and the minimal. This site required a consistently high heat load, which is where wood chip works best.

A 110 kW Froling T4 chip boiler was selected for its clean burn and high efficiencies. The boiler house was set in a barn adjacent to the chip store. The chips were auger fed into the boiler through the adjoining wall. The thermal store is a 850L buffer and serves the farm house with hot water and heating.

Central External Log Boiler

RHI Payment over 7 years: £42,067
Fuel Saving over 7 years:£22,633

This property had access to woodland and logs, which meant a log boiler was the obvious choice, due to minimal fuel costs and sustainable carbon neutral credentials. However the property had no usable internal space for an internal log boiler and thermal store. So we decided to overcome the issue by utilising the outside space and installing an external log boiler. The perfect solution was to use a 45kW Central E-Classic outdoor log boiler, due to its weather proofing and stand –alone design providing a flexible location for the installation.

The advantage to using this type of log boiler, is essentially all components are housed within the boiler as pictured, which offers a compact solution to log burning. The Central E-Classic has an integrated thermal jacket, which means there is no need for a thermal store. The boiler is connected to the internal heating connection via an insulated pipe running over ground, however in many installations we run insulated underground piping.

The E-Classic requires a manual load and can take logs of up to of 750mm in length. A full load will typically produce enough heat and hot water demands for 4-5 days in the summer and 2-3 days in the winter. The Central requires cleaning once every 6-7 weeks.

The end result of the installation provides a fuss free biomass option, which has no impact on the internal spacing with a home. The boiler can be located anywhere outdoors so provides a flexible solution to log burning for hot water and heating.

Kingscote Vineyard

Fuel Saving over 20 years: £238,677
RHI Payment over 20 years:£264,101

Set in a rural location, the Kingscote Vineyard required a heat source which would provide constant heat to a period barn, which has a large heat load. Under floor heating was chosen for this beautiful 17th century barn, as it solved all aesthetic issues and provided a constant heat source even when the barn doors are open. Due to the large heat load a pellet boiler was chosen due to its high calorific heat source.

This project required A Greener Alternative to install a Froling 85kW pellet boiler into a small barn which would act as an energy centre and pellet store. The boiler would feed underfloor heating to the magnificent 17th century barn which had been relocated piece by piece to form the centre point for the vineyard.

National Trust

Fuel Saving over 7 years:£14,083
RHI Payment over 7 years:£26,175

This national trust property wanted to make use of various forms of sustainable energy. The Property had a south facing pitched roof and was set in densely populated woodland. Therefore it was decided that a combination of thermal solar, log boiler and log stove would be used to harness the carbon neutral assets surrounding the home and produce the heating and hot water for this unique ecological home.

A Greener Alternative worked with the national trust to create a bespoke system which would be perfectly balanced for the needs of this unique building. The use of multiple ecological technologies demonstrates the skills required to create a fully sustainable and efficient system.

The boiler is a 28kW froling log boiler and was housed in the utility section of the house with buffer tank. The solar thermal are a combination of flat plates and tubes. The log burning stove is not connected to the hot water system and provides room heat only.

Colchester Zoo

Fuel Saving over 20 years:£195,593
RHI Payment over 20 years:£621,415

Colchester zoo has a dedication to the environment and conservation, so it was an obvious choice to convert to using biomass, as it would solve both high fuel bills and create a carbon neutral heat solution. The premises is a large Victorian period building and required a significant heat load with an efficient calorific fuel source, therefore a pellet boiler was chosen for the project.

A Greener Alternative fitted a 200kW wood pellet boiler to provide hot water and heating to the main building. As you can see from the photo’s access was difficult, but not an impossible task with the use of a crane.

The boiler, hopper and buffer tanks are situated in a container unit turned energy centre. The installation also has a steel framed external 7 ton pellet store. The system is fully automated and pellets are blown delivered.