Rinnai continuous flow & solar panels replace stored hot water system at Peckforton Castle

Rinnai, the UK’s leading manufacturer of continuous flow hot water heating units and systems, has recently completed an installation at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire, replacing the old direct fired stored hot water system.

Two HDC 1500i units were linked to solar panels as the main hot water heating source by contractor A P Mitchell.

Peckforton Castle, built in 1842 and completed in 1851, is a Victorian country house built in the style of a medieval castle and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a Grade I listed building. It stands in woodland near the village of Peckforton on the Cheshire plain. The house has changed ownership many times before it was purchased by the Naylor family in 2006, whereupon the historic building was repurposed as the popular luxury hotel and spa it is today.

The house has featured many times in TV and film – Robin Hood in the mid-1980s – and Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. Now it is a 48-bed room hotel and prestigious venue for corporate events and weddings.

Adam Mitchell for A P Mitchell said “The brief from the client was to create a more efficient system, and at the same time to enact a reduction in stored water volume to give substantial saving in gas fuel consumption. But the new system had to still meet peak demand in the hotel, spa and event facilities.”

“Our company provides a professional and comprehensive M&E building service, design, supply and installation; offering quality construction workmanship and value for money services. We pride ourselves on our quality of building services, workmanship excellence and client service.”

Rinnai’s HDC1500i, is an award-winning range of continuous flow water heating units that will reliably meet this brief. The range was developed to guarantee the maximum amount of affordable, ecologically friendly; safe-temperature controlled hot water, on demand at any time, by even the busiest commercial user. The Rinnai 1500i is engineered to the highest standard and is technologically advanced with a host of features giving added value.

Both Rinnai HDC1500i internal and external units turn in an impressive energy performance of 105% net efficiency. They can also be cascaded into Infinity Plus modules comprising of a minimum of two HDC1500 units – any number of modules can be manifolded; therefore, the capacity for never ending ‘cascading’ hot water is infinite. Installation is straightforward and simple – each module of Infinity Plus cascades for the Rinnai HDC 1500i comes with its own precision engineered rack, so there is no need to fabricate one or partake in adding pipework right up to the appliances. Simply connect the services pipework and the rack system will eliminate these time-consuming plant tasks, streamlining the installation and helping keep remedial costs to a minimum.

A major benefit onsite has been the savings on fuel over other forms of water heating solutions, this has been achieved by the added advantage that Rinnai systems will only raise the temperature of the water if required and that these smart condensing water heaters will only increase the temperature by the precise amount needed. This ensures that any solar gains are maximised and ‘boosted’ by a secondary heat source thus guaranteeing the optimization of both technologies.

Rinnai hot water heating products and systems are intelligent, fully modulating units, giving an output range from 56kW down to 2.27kW, and only use as much gas as is needed to bring the required volume of water to temperature. For example, if the solar panel array can only achieve a temperature of 40°C within the stored water instead of the required 60°C, and there is a demand on the system of 15 litres a minute, the fully modulating intelligent Rinnai unit will increase the temperature by the required 20°C (±1°C) whilst only using the required 21kW. If the demand drops to say 5l/min the heater will modulate down accordingly to an output 7kW.

As can be seen a Rinnai unit used as a gas booster for solar systems will not only maximize solar gain, it will only use the correct amount of energy for the demand at the time and the rest of the time the unit remains inactive. It is this, the booster, that ensures never-ending hot water – no matter the demand, the conditions. Fossil fuel is only used when the renewable thermal energy store is below its set-point, thus reducing the dependency on fossil fuel and reducing CO2 emissions.

The Rinnai system produces usable hot water on demand, at the turn of a tap or the push of a shower button. The relatively compact footprint of the units also means they can be housed in tight spaces and still be easily accessible for maintenance and servicing.

According to Chris Goggin “Rinnai 1500i units represent the best value-for-money commercial hot water solution on the market today, delivered direct to site in one complete, easy to manage package. Ensuring that our customers and end users experience is effortless”

“Rinnai condensing continuous flow water heaters are low NoX, achieving less than 50mg/ kwh with gross efficiencies of 96-97%. The appliances can delivery in excess of 960 litres per hour at 50° degree rise and all our units are A rated within ErP.”