Attaining optimum thermal comfort is crucial when it comes to the well-being of the elderly, especially during cold winter months – and of course achieving this at the lowest energy cost is the Holy Grail. Two residential care homes on the south coast, therefore, looked towards Alpha Heating Innovation for a tailored and flexible heating solution, to meet these demands.
The Primrose Lodge residential care homes in Weymouth and Bournemouth, part of the Affinity Care group, have recently undergone a complete heating system overhaul to maximise energy efficiency. The homes, with over 50 elderly residents combined, have seen a mixture of Alpha boiler systems installed across the two plots to meet the varied needs of each property.
Due to the demanding nature of the heating and domestic hot water needs of the care homes, Ian Finch Plumbing and Heating specified Alpha Heating Innovation’s products.
Installer, Ian, said:
“We have completed a number of installations with Alpha’s products, prior to the heating work at the Primrose Lodge Care Homes.”
Alpha’s FlowSmart systems were installed at the Weymouth property, upgrading the previous singular cast iron boiler that was prone to constant failure and cracking – a real issue when the welfare of the elderly residents was at stake. The new wall-hung system solutions combine three Alpha InTec 40GS boilers, which include integrated GasSaver units, with ‘bolt-on’ thermal stores.
The GasSaver element uses the heat from the recovered flue gases to pre-heat incoming cold mains water. This pre-heated water then passes through a copper coil heat exchanger in the thermal store where it is heated further by surrounding hot water from the primary system. From here, the water then passes through a blending valve where it is regulated to an optimum temperature of 30°C, allowing a sustained supply at flow rates of around 18 litres per minute.
This mechanism for creating domestic hot water offers the residents a more even water temperature and improved performance by allowing the boilers to meet heavy water demand for a sustained period of time without any detrimental impact on flow rates.
Further along the coast at the Bournemouth Primrose Lodge site, two InTec 28S boilers incorporating Alpha’s plate heat exchanger, separating the system from the boiler water were installed. This additional component helps to avoid section replacements and long periods of downtime, if there was ever a fault. If a problem was to arise, the plate exchanger can be easily dismantled, cleaned, and rebuilt again without disrupting other parts of the boiler.
Oliver Forbes, technical sales manager at Alpha Heating Innovation, said:
“We are pleased that we were able to meet the high output demands of an application such as the Primrose Lodge care homes. These throw the varied heating and hot water demands of modern living into the spotlight, demonstrating just how flexible heating solutions now need to be in order to meet wide ranging needs.”