Shoeburyness fire station fights high gas bills

Shoeburyness fire station is a Retained Fire Station and part of Essex County Fire and Rescue Service. Like many fire stations, it is expensive to heat, so around three years ago the brigade thought of installing a boiler and energy management system to cut heating costs. Mark Askew, the building service engineer at Essex Fire & Rescue Property Services, explained that he wanted “Greater control over the heating” and that he was “…. eager to save money since gas prices had soared”.

After considering various options, Shoeburyness fire station decided to fit a HeatingSave Building Energy Management system to their heating system. The heating system comprises a gas-fired combi condensing boiler running on natural gas. The heat is distributed using conventional radiators. The exception to this is the appliance bay area which uses an electric heater.

Mark Askew said that there were no problems with the installation of the HeatingSave system, which controls both the gas and electric heating system and is connected to the Internet so that the heating can be controlled and monitored remotely.

One of the key money-saving aspects of the Shoeburyness fire station system is the use of PIR (passive infra-red) sensors to detect occupancy. With these, HeatingSave “knows” when a particular heating zone is manned or when it is vacant. HeatingSave then automatically turns down the heating when nobody is around and automatically and quickly turns up the heating when an area is occupied.

When asked what he particularly likes about the system, Mark said “HeatingSave is giving us full control over the heating of the premises, automatically lowering to a background temperature when it is unoccupied and up to temperature when we are here. I also like the boost facility if we want it a bit warmer”.

Mark went on to explain that a lot of heat escapes when the fire engine bay doors are open and how HeatingSave correctly manages this so that the minimum amount of energy is wasted. This is because with HeatingSave each heating zone can be adjusted or switched off in particular rooms, thus saving more money. The HeatingSave Heat-Loss-Algorithm is another area where they are saving money. Here, the boiler is switched on later on warm days and earlier on cold ones, depending upon the heat-loss-profile of the station, which HeatingSave has been learning and improving since the first day it was installed.

The HeatingSave installation at Shoeburyness fire station has proved easy to use and reliable and they have not needed to use the HeatingSave help desk or maintenance department; although they can be rest assured that our comprehensive support structure would be on hand if help is needed. advice or the device ever had to be repaired.

When Mark Askew was asked if he would recommend HeatingSave to other fire authorities he replied “Yes, we are impressed with HeatingSave and will be installing it in other fire stations within the Essex County Fire and Rescue Service”

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Shoeburyness Fire Station, Shoebury Avenue, Shoeburyness, Essex SS3 9AR