The Project
In this case study we look at an interesting church heating project where multiple styles of heaters and technologies were installed at St Mary’s Church in Kennington, Ashford. St Marys is a quintessential rural church with parts that date back to the 13th century.
The brief for this project was simple – design a low carbon, direct heating system that respects the grandeur of the church whilst keeping running costs to a minimum. The project was expertly designed and installed by our friends at DSLT Electrical and here’s how it all unfolded.
Pew heaters provide discreet comfort heat to a church congregation
Neat and tidy work from the installers at DSLT
The Church
Like most churches, St Mary’s is used intermittently meaning they required a heating system with minimal warm up time. Because of this, a conventional space heating system (boiler/radiator) would not be practical due to the church’s high ceiling and poor insulation.
The church was looking for direct heat to cover 28 rows of pews, the chancel, the font and the entrance area. Due to the size of the project, the first step was to liaise with the local DNO as the church needed to upgrade its incoming power to three phase. Following this, the team at DSLT Electrical upgraded the church’s distribution board to conform with current regs which included surge protection and modern circuit protective devices.
The Specification
DSLT took the reigns on the design and specified this project perfectly. Each pew was sufficiently covered with pew heaters and zero glare quartz halogen heaters were installed in the chancel, lady chapel and font. A 3kW overdoor heater was also mounted above the main door to create a warm welcoming.
Specification:
56 x 300W pew heaters
6 x 450W pew heaters
4 x 3kW zero glare quartz halogen heaters
1 x 2kW zero glare quartz halogen heaters
1 x 3kW overdoor fan heater
The design put together on CAD by the team at DSLT Electrical
Pew heaters are hand assembled in the UK and designed to provide years of maintenance free operation
The Heaters
St Mary’s has fixed pews which made under pew heaters the ideal choice for localising heat to the congregation. Under pew heaters are unobtrusive low level convector heaters that sit under pews and convect warm air upwards towards a pew occupant. These heaters are hand assembled in the UK and made of tough durable steel meaning they can withstand accidental knocks.
As the pews at St Mary’s all have back boards, the heaters were easily installed onto the pews and did not require additional bracketry.
The Heaters
The chancel, lady chapel and baptism area were all heated with shortwave quartz halogen heaters. Shortwave quartz halogen heaters provide instant comfort heat with zero warm up time making them ideal for heating intermittently used premises.
Luke at DSLT specified our zero glare magic lamp heaters which do not give off a red beam and are the most unobtrusive quartz heater on the market.
A 3kW overdoor heater was also installed above the main door which will help to create a warm welcome when entering the church.
Magic lamp quartz heaters heaters provide instant comfort heat with no obtrusive red beam
Run down time controls keep running costs to an absolute minimum
Control
With a project of this size, a well thought out control system is essential to keeping energy consumption and running costs to a minimum. With this in mind, the team at DSLT Electrical installed time controls which automatically switch the heaters off after a pre determined time. Thus avoids the heaters being left on when the church is unoccupied. Time control was provided using a neat, user friendly set of switches.
The switches also allow members of the church to zone the heating and save energy. For example, if the chancel is occupied for a meeting, just the heaters in the chancel can be turned on.
The Finished Project
The overall project was a big success and the design was spot on. The installers were able to deliver an unobtrusive, low carbon heating system that fit the brief. Upon completion, DSLT Electrical issued their client an electronic copy of a NICEIC Approved Contractor Electrical Installation Certification and an operations & maintenance manual.
We would like to say a big thank you to Luke at DSLT Electrical for providing us with photos of the project and their CAD drawing.
