12th century church gets new carbon neutral heating system

St Nicholas Church is a Grade 2* twelfth-century parish church in Great Wilbraham, to the east of Cambridge. The original building was remodelled in the thirteenth century in a cruciform plan, and the west tower, which houses six bells, was added by the fifteenth century.

When heating a church of this age and beauty it is essential that the design of the system not only addresses the heat problem, but helps to stabilise humidity, which can cause fabric issues in an old church such as St Nicholas.

Bearing these factors in consideration, and being mindful of the aesthetics of the church, the PCC decided to install the ChurchEcoMiser system. The system has no boiler, which means no flue and no fuel storage and no costly annual maintenance charges, in fact there is very little required in the way of ongoing maintenance as there are no moving parts.

The system at St Nicholas consists of 23 radiators sensitively placed and colour coded to be as unobtrusive as possible. The heaters are silent in operation and each have an integral clay core designed to retain heat and give a perfect balance of radiated and convected heat. The heaters are 100% fuel efficient and can be easily zoned, although at this church zoning was not required. The system is designed to warm the fabric of the church as well as the congregation and is controlled by our ChurchEcoMiser intelligent optimising CEM unit which allows a background temperature to be maintained and then boosted for church services.

These days we all have to be more aware of environmental issues, so it is comforting to know that if the church buys its electricity through a ‘green’ supplier, then not only will they have a warm, comfortable church, they will be doing it with a carbon neutral system.

For further information visit www.churchecomiser.co.uk