Thirlmere Recreation Hall

Case Study

Thirlmere Recreation Hall is in the centre of a rural parish in the middle of the Lake District National Park. The hall is used for community meetings and other activities. Originally a Mission Church at Haweswater, the building became redundant when work ended on the reservoir and was donated to the community.

As the building has a cast iron structure, it used to be very cold and take several hours to warm up. To heat the building, the community used electric heaters as it is not connected to the gas grid. This meant that members had to arrive two hours before any meetings or events to switch on the electric heaters to ensure the hall was warm enough.

The community has so far invested significant time and effort into making the building more comfortable and user friendly, including refurbishing and updating. They were therefore keen to find an alternative heating system which was cheaper to run and more environmentally friendly than electric heaters.

The key motivators for the community were:

• Cost of fuel: electricity bills were very high as electricity is a very expensive fuel to use to heat a building.
• Convenience of use: having to manually switch on heaters a few hours before meetings and events meant that the building was not suitable for short or unplanned meetings and members had to coordinate and agree which member would go to the building and switch the heaters on.
• Comfort: even with electric heaters, the building used to be very cold and it seemed to cool down very quickly after heaters were switched off.
• Environmental concerns: the community is based in the Lake District National Park and its members are, in the majority, environmentally aware. They accessed ways to reduce their use of energy and impact on environment and identified that the electric heaters were not a sustainable or affordable heating solution.

.

The renewable energy solution

After considering different options, it became apparent that a wood burning boiler was the most cost effective and environmentally friendly solution for the community.

Sustaburn is an MCS certified company based in Cumbria specialising in the design and installation of biomass heating systems. They were appointed to assess the site and determine the appropriate system to be installed.

A 20 kW biomass boiler with a radiator system was proposed as the best heating solution for the building. The size of the boiler could have been smaller but since the building is used intermittently, decision was taken to install a boiler with a bigger capacity to reduce heating time and make the system more flexible to demand.

The wood pellets are held in a 1/2 tonne tank they are supplied monthly during high usage periods such as winter, and every six weeks if demand is not as high. The boiler has a  vacuum feed pellet transport system, which means that, should the building use and therefore heat demand increase, a larger storage tank could be located outside and be connected to the boiler to increase storage capacity and reduce deliveries.

This means that the system will be able to cope with potential future increases in demand.

As the system is fully automated, the community is able to programme when it needs to be switched on or off.

.

The process to make it happen

• Obtaining finance: the community, led by the Chair of Committee Sally Bickerdyke, worked hard to identify funding sources for the project. They submitted an application for CSEP funding which was not successful. However, several alternative sources of funding were investigated and the Lake District National Park and Cumbria County Council provided 100% of the funding for the project!
• Community consultation: the community was consulted about the project and there was no opposition to installing a biomass boiler.
• National Park approval: approval from the Lake District National Park was relatively straight forward and did not delay the process.
• Installation: installation of the biomass boiler took a week, during which time people were still able to use the hall as the majority of work took place in the basement of the building. Radiators to distribute the heat from the boiler had been installed previously by a local plumbing company.

.

Key issues

• Irregular use of the building: Thirlmere Community Hall does not have a set pattern of use which means that heating demand is not consistent. The new system does still requires some planning by community members to ensure that the building is warm whilst using as little energy as possible. Currently, the system has been set up to be on for 3 hours per day in order for the building to stay above a certain temperature to allow for some flexibility in usage.
• Finding fuel supplier: identifying the right supplier of fuel seemed a difficult challenge to the community. However, support from ourselves at the early stages of the project was a great help in identifying a suitable supplier. Going forwards the community will continue to look at different suppliers to ensure that they continue to source local, good quality, sustainable fuel for their biomass boiler.

.

The benefits: how hard work paid dividends

The community had an Open Day on the 11th of March 2011 to celebrate the the renovation of the hall. Thanks to the dedication of the community members the hall now has insulated walls and ceilings, which improves the building’s ability to retain its temperature, making it more energy efficient.

The biomass boiler has been running throughout the extreme weather conditions experienced during the winter months, providing a high level of heat comfort to the users of the building and saving money on energy bills.

Fully automated controls allow community members to programme the biomass boiler so that the building gets heated at the right time of the day automatically. The system adapts itself to meet the desired temperature set-point to the outside temperature.

This provides more flexibility and increases the ability to make use of the building.

The hall is now accommodating overnight stays, functions, charity events, book launches, flower shows, meetings and an array of community activities which are benefiting the community as a whole.