HeatingSave doubles as building fault diagnostics tool for the Lindum Group
The Lindum Group is a well-known name in the construction sector, focusing on large construction projects, especially in the food manufacturing and retailing sectors, as well as education and social housing. The Group directly employs around 450 people at any one time and has a turnover of £80m, with offices in Lincoln, Grimsby, Spalding, Peterborough and London.
In 2012, the company saw the huge energy and money saving potential provided by the HeatingSave Building Energy Management System and decided to have it installed at their Lincoln headquarters. The results were immediately visible as the Group cut their energy spending by “more than 5,000 pounds” within the year.
HeatingSave had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Warren Glover, the Lindum Group Facilities Manager, back in May 2013 – you can find more about their very positive initial experience of HeatingSave here.
However, a year later, Mr Glover came back to us with a very interesting update, one which shines new light on the HeatingSave system’s extensive environmental monitoring capabilities.
Mr Glover said, “We currently occupy offices that have been built into a building that was originally a large paper processing factory.
The occupants had always raised concerns that the heating system was inadequate in the winter. We installed the HeatingSave system just prior to the previous severe winter period to better manage our gas boilers. The system worked well until we experienced a sustained period of extremely low temperatures.
At this point certain occupants of a large open plan office complained that the office never achieved an acceptable level of warmth. Since the HeatingSave system gives minute-by-minute information regarding the building performance, we were able to examine the data to establish a much clearer view of the situation.
It revealed that although the boilers were operating on a non-stop basis the office never achieved a temperature above 16 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, as the office had two sensors within it we could establish that the open plan area exhibited a temperature drop of over 4 degrees across the area.”
HeatingSave uses sensors to constantly monitor the temperatures within each heating zone which then allows HeatingSave to make small adjustments to keep each room comfortable without wasting fuel and money.
While playing the essential role in the HeatingSave system’s functionality, sensors, coupled with our powerful analysis and monitoring software can also be used as a diagnostic tool, offering administrators useful insights into possible building faults – either of the existing heating system (boilers, pumps, etc.) or of the building itself.
This was the case at Lindum, as Warren further explained, “…. this enabled us to quickly focus on examining the integrity of the building within the cold areas. This revealed significant issues regarding the thermal integrity of the fabric of the building previously hidden by internal walls.
Having identified the problem we took remedial action which is now completed. The results are than in the same office areas we are retaining residual temperatures of 18 degrees and above without any heating on at all.”
Beside improving the level of thermal comfort for occupants, this corrective action also helped the Lindum Group save more energy and use less fuel. The boilers are no longer required to work on a non-stop basis, leading to savings closer to 6,000 pounds per annum.
Summing up his experience of HeatingSave, Warren concluded, “HeatingSave’s data enabled us to move from imprecise, anecdotal evidence to something that directly led us to identify a specific fault that is now resolved. We have dramatically cut our energy bills and improved the working conditions for our team.”
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Customer Information
Lindum Group Ltd,
Station Road
North Hykeham
Lincoln
LN6 3QX
Telephone: 01522 500300
Fax: 01522 500377
Web: http://www.lindumgroup.com/
Email: webmail@lindumgroup.co.uk