The boiler room was stripped of its three elderly oil boilers and the wood chip boiler put back in their place, the opportunity was taken to create three separate heating zones in the school and upgrade the controls. The boiler is connected to a Low loss header as if it were a conventional pressure jet boiler- due to its fully controlled modulating combustion there is no need to have a buffer vessel or thermal store.

The build quality and ability to work without a buffer vessel are the two main attributes that put this make of boiler above all others on the market according to specifier Peter Brown of SCC. Other advantages of the boiler include its capacity to burn chips or pellets, an automatic feed system, automatic ignition, automatic ash removal from boiler, automatic daily cleaning of heat exchanger and modulation down to 30% of output as well as 91-93% efficiency. Nine solar panels are connected to the two HWS calorifiers second coil and out of the heating season they are complimented by a Broag Quinta 65kw boiler in case the sun doesn't shine.

The installation strengthens the school's green credentials, as Dave Hardwicke, of Broag, explains: "In the case of Stradbroke, the boiler installation will stop the school burning 45,000 litres a year of gas oil and reduce the carbon emissions of the site by approximately 120 tonnes annually. Biomass is by far the most efficient way of getting heating equipment to run on low to zero carbon fuel, and also works regardless of the weather i.e. if the sun is shining (or not) or the wind blowing, these other technologies have their place and all will be needed to help meet the carbon reduction commitments the UK, but if heat is required on demand then biomass is the solution."

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