St Ives Fire Station hoses down gas bills using HeatingSave

St Ives Fire Station is one of 28 fire stations operated by Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, whose website says is “working together to improve community safety”.

The St Ives retained (or part-time) Fire Station has one conventional gas boiler, which provides the heating to both the station and an adjoining occupation health unit which is open from 8am to 5pm, five days per week. Since the building has a mixture of full and part-time staff, the heating is difficult to regulate to match the building use. Business sites are also notoriously expensive to keep warm because many of them use basic or outdated controls that cannot reduce heating bills.

Clive Stevens, the county fire service property estates manager, explained that were a number of reasons the organisation wanted an effective building energy management system. He said the reasons included, “Energy saving; and staff previously used to open the windows when hot.”

A HeatingSave Building Energy Management Systems was installed in February 2010 by HeatingSave’s specialist engineers. Clive said there were no problems with the installation of either the hardware or software. He also went on the explain that he received training in how to use the HeatingSave system ‘on-site’, and commented that the quality of training was “very knowledgeable”.

HeatingSave building energy management system cut heating costs because it accurately watches the climbing room temperatures and switches off the heat, using the residual heat within the boiler, to reach the correct room temperature. Thermostats cannot do this and always overshoot the temperature, wasting fuel and leading to that ‘turn the heating up, then open a window’ syndrome. Fitting sensors to fire station doors further reduces fuel costs as HeatingSave automatically cuts the heating to the fire engine bay area when the doors are open.

The diary function in HeatingSave can be used to frequently change heating patterns. Clive added, “We have had no complaints yet – which is a good thing.” The HeatingSave rolling diary knows about weekends and holidays or changes in a daily routine, so this function is ideal for fire fighters’ shift patterns. HeatingSave will warm up the building in time for when fire fighters come in, saving a big proportion from bills by itself.

Clive closed by saying, “I’m very satisfied with the HeatingSave system”. Bearing in mind one gas company has already instigated a 10% tariff rise to take effect this December, Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue will for the first time have a full winter in which to make energy savings.