This Care Home was experiencing severe overheating and wasted energy due to a lack of control, while receiving ever increasing gas bills.
The problem
Asters were called in by the frustrated administrator who was concerned at the high gas bills and waste of energy.
A previous company had been attempting to deal with the system but they had been unable to bring it fully under control.
The building had a heating controller installed, but it had not been set up properly.
The solutions
We were able to identify that the main VT (Variable Temperature) valve had been forced open and left at 100%, and also wrongly configured with the actuator in the wrong orientation. The building had no space sensor fitted, which was not helping matters.
We brought the building back under control by recommissioning the VT and HWS (Hot Water Service) motorised valves, and setting up the building controller correctly.
We also installed pump controls at the same time (these had been omitted in the original installation), which added to the economies achieved by switching off the pumps when the controls were not demanding them to run.
We fitted a room sensor to improve system regulation and enable ‘night setback’, reducing the temperature at night when most of the residents are asleep.
Following our remedial works the heating was fully controllable by the client, the VT heating regulated correctly and the gas consumption was brought back to a reasonable level.
