The management at The Hogfather are determined to be as Carbon Neutral as possible as they refurbish their new (old) premises at The Old Church, Cemetery Road, Southport, PR8 5EE; as part of this drive they’ve commissioned a solar panel powered solution to provide energy for The Old Church’s under floor heating and domestic hot water systems. Solar gains will give at least 75% of the energy required over the year and heating shortfall is intended to be bridged by utilising spent engine and gear box oil from motorcycle services – which burns much cleaner than a conventional oil fired boiler, via a bespoke energy from waste, heat exchanger, so again recycling with an environmentally green thrust.
The Hogfather owner Yeti Edwards, who between building custom motorcycles, also works for global companies as a consultant project director on a range of challenging objectives which include alternative energy solutions in the most challenging of geographical and sociological climates whether within the densest African bush or deserts in the Middle East. As such he thought he’d apply his knowledge and experience of this, but more importantly do The Hogfathers bit for Green energy. In a nut shell, Yeti explained, “Its simple really you just need to calculate the maximum hourly thermal load and / or losses to ascertain the under floor Heating requirement – in this case we have commissioned a Wet System for under floor heating, which like conventional radiators, once filled with water (and glycol antifreeze) is constantly recycled. A set of solar thermal collectors (solar panels) are specifically intended to absorb solar gains - collect heat – even without direct sunlight. Solar radiation is absorbed by the solar panel which in turn heats the water/glycol mix that is pumped through it. This heated water/glycol mix is also circulated through a separate coil in the hot water cylinder and used to heat domestic tap water. Overall calculations are the same as you’d use for any other combined heating and water system, with a twist as an under floor heating system has a slightly different criteria, which can result in lower heat losses than would be calculated for a radiator system. As more than 50% of the floor heat emitted is radiant transfer this heats bodies, objects and the building fabric without heating high air voids. This feature of under floor heating increases the rooms mean radiant temperature (MRT) as the floor is the equivalent of a very large radiator, the temperature is constant and stable to around 2.5 metres from the floor. Downward (from floor) losses are limited by insulating the floor slab and perimeter edge. Very importantly as The Old Church has high ceilings and because wet under floor heating does not produce the same convective gradients as radiator heating, no additional heating is required to compensate for high ceilings.