HeatingSave gives Fareham Methodist Church improved heating control

Originally built in 1938, the church had undergone a series of energy efficiency improvements such as roof space insulation and double glazing, so the primary factor in upgrading their heating was not to save money on energy bills.

Sunday services in the main church hall are the only constant in the various uses of the church building throughout the week, with other groups including yoga, Bible study, and children's clubs, each at different times on different days. To better and more conveniently control and manage the heating throughout the building, Fareham Methodist Church turned to HeatingSave.

"Another Methodist church had just installed HeatingSave," says Mike, "so we talked to them and learned a lot about what benefits they'd had.

"For us, our driver wasn't to reduce the amount of energy we were using each year. It was much more about that ability to control the heating better, which then would mean that we'd use less energy anyway."

The need to improve heating control

Throughout the building there are three main rooms that are let out to different groups, as well as several ancillary rooms. Mike explains the challenges this caused:

"We get someone come in for a period of one to three hours, say 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock, and then we might have nothing else for the rest of the day, or we might have another group come back at 3 'til 5 and then maybe another one 7 'til 9.

"The old-fashioned timer system and static room thermostats that we used restricted the number of occasions that we could turn the heating on and off during a day; I think it was three. This meant that if we had more than that number of bookings, we ended up heating empty rooms because it would turn on for the 9 o'clock session and be left on until 5 o'clock; then other groups would come in the evening, and it could be adjusted for that.

"Also, we could set the time to go on and off, but we couldn't change temperature. So someone might come in and think it was too cold and turn the thermostat up, and then of course not turn it back."

This way of heating also meant that the individual thermostats needed to be programmed for each of the three time periods every week by someone visiting the church in person.

"That was a real nightmare for us," recalls Mike. "It could take almost an hour, and it had to happen every week because each week was different. We knew this way of doing things wasn't sustainable, so our driver was how to change that."

The HeatingSave room booking system provides greater heating control

With HeatingSave, the challenge of better heating control was solved with the room booking system, a complete system designed to replace existing heating time clocks and provide a cost-effective, all-in-one energy management, room booking and — should it be required — security access control system. In addition to providing a convenient temperature management tool, the room booking system allows users to book out various areas of the building and control booking logistics, quotations, deposits and account management through an internet browser.

"The most wondrous bit of HeatingSave for us is the booking system," says Mike.

"It's cut out all of our timers. It's cut out all of our thermostats. It's cut out heating empty spaces. It's given us that ability to vary temperature between one space and another space, and between one time and another time.

"It means we leave our heating on all year, and the system controls it. When our booking secretary takes a booking, say for 9 to 12, she will ask questions about the booking, like if it's a sedentary or an active type of meeting, and pick a temperature to suit that.

"She doesn't need to think about when the heating needs to come on, or overrides. She just needs to know how to use the booking system part of it. She can go into the calendar overview and see how busy the building is; when someone rings up and asks to book a group, she can easily see where there is space. She just picks the booking time, sets an appropriate temperature and ticks the zones — and leaves it to the system.

"The beauty of it is that if you get cancellation, you just cancel the booking. You don't have to worry about the fact that the space has been heated."

Zoned heating provides improved heating control

The room booking system works through the use of heating zones, where different rooms or areas can have their heating controlled independently of each other, allowing each zone to have its heating times and temperatures set individually. This is managed through a network of temperature sensors, Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs) and connections to the electric heaters.

Mike is pleased that so much time and attention was paid during setup to the implementation of the heating zones:

"HeatingSave helped us to think about what zones we wanted to control. The really obvious ones are the rooms, but actually the ancillary zones are also important; we don't want people walking through cold areas to get to their booked hall because they'll think the church is cold.

"We created separate zones for our welcome area, which is effectively like an overgrown porch, and our corridor, so that we could monitor it even though it doesn't have independent heating. By zoning those areas out separately, we keep them to quite low temperatures, but it means that we've got that bit of control.

"Breaking down into more zones is probably more useful; obviously, one big hall wouldn't really be broken down further, but having more individual zones is useful because you can link them into areas within the system."

Occupancy sensor provides heating flexibility

Two of the main booking spaces in Fareham Methodist Church use radiators on a gas heated wet central heating system, while the third is completely heated by ceiling mounted electric heaters.

To further provide the control required by Fareham Methodist Church, a combined temperature, relative humidity and PIR occupancy sensor was installed in the large hall heated by six 3-kilowatt heaters, which cost considerably more to run than the wet heating throughout the rest of the building.

Passive Infrared Sensors (PIR) use changes in heat radiation to detect whether anyone is in a room, which then indicates to the HeatingSave system whether the heating should be switched on or off.

Mike explains that this one seemingly simple feature has proven beneficial:

"The occupancy sensor was a relatively low-cost addition to give us that extra control of our more expensive heating.

"There had been two or three instances where a group had booked the hall and at the last minute they didn't use it. However, we'd set it up for them and so 18 kilowatts was belting away from the heaters, but they weren't there.

"The advantage of the occupancy sensor is that because the electric heaters produce a relatively instantaneous heat, when it clicks on the occupants immediately feel the room warming up. Whereas the wet system is so much more gradual that there wouldn't be a benefit to it going off and coming on like that.

"This is actually another thing I like about HeatingSave: it's heating source blind. It doesn't need to know whether the other end of the system is electrical heating or gas heating. It's intervening at the controller point.

"I've had people assume it only works on boiler systems, and they're quite surprised when I tell them that it makes no difference what it controls, that it basically just turns the switch on. That switch might be a heater on the wall, it might be a heater in the ceiling, it might be a boiler system. That's its prime purpose, that on/off switch, and the monitoring lets it know when to do that."

HeatingSave provides unexpected benefits

Mike believes that the users of the church now think more about how they use the building, which contributes to the benefits of the system in addition to improvements over heating control.

"There's some behavioural spin-offs from installing HeatingSave, which we probably didn't realize we would get when we installed it, but we're really pleased about, and which have also driven down our energy use.

"We've got the church to understand that they can't just book a meeting ad hoc, because if there's no booking, there's no heat. It's created a great discipline of church groups who in the past would just assume that they could go down and use the building as and when they like. Now they have to go to our booking secretary to make sure the space gets heated. We've made it really clear to them that we have no other way to heat it and we rarely allow overrides.

"I think we've also probably conditioned our hirers to understand they don't need to have the same temperature as they would have in their lounge at home. When we had a thermostat on the wall, people always used to put it to probably 20 or 21 degrees, because that's what they thought comfort was, sitting in their armchair at home. But of course, that's not what you need a building like this heated to.

"As another example, we used to set our old-fashioned room thermostats for a Sunday at 20.5 degrees, but people came in and still moaned that it was cold. We've learned through HeatingSave that we get a one degree temperature increase in the room just from adding the people, so we now set it at 19 and know that by a third of the way into the service, it will have gone up without any heat input. That sort of intelligence out of the back of the system is really useful.

"It's also helpful that the system understands the differential between external and internal temperatures. We tweak it a little bit throughout the year — if we're in a colder period, we will slightly overheat inside so when people walk in from the cold it's slightly warmer. Then in the autumn and spring they don't need it to feel so much warmer inside, so we can reduce it a bit.

"The beauty of the HeatingSave system is that you can adjust it if you want, which is great."

Easier energy monitoring and control through the dashboard

Alongside the room booking system, the HeatingSave software dashboard also provides the ability to monitor energy use throughout the building and determine energy performance of each zone in real time as well as retrospectively. The software turns this data into user-friendly graphics, so users can analyse the data and see the cause and effect. In addition, the HeatingSave app allows users to monitor and control energy consumption through a phone, without being on site.

Mike says that despite not primarily using the dashboard to track energy savings, he still finds the graphs useful for monitoring energy and room use:

"We have the dashboard on our church computer, two of us have the phone app so we can remotely override and make changes to the system, and then our booking secretary tends to only use the booking system.

"The software package, particularly the overview page, is so simple, it's easy to train one or two people to be able to do that. I started off using that energy overview page, but I use it a lot less now.

"However, what I can do is go to a particular zone — for example the large hall — and then see not only today but go back through previous days to see how it went for different hires. This helps me to get a feel for the heating time and the warm-up time — which of course the algorithms do in the system automatically.

"Obviously there's a lot of data in there which could be of more use, but for us it's more of interest to just check that the system is hitting its temperature at the start of a booking as opposed to hitting its temperature towards the end of a booking.

"We didn't have any training, which I'm sure would have been helpful, but we didn't feel the need, and actually, I think discovering the system through using it has been helpful.

"I did have quite a few conversations with the Helpdesk and they were exceedingly helpful and patient. I was able to share my screen with Anton, and he was able to actually look at settings and show me. This was the equivalent of the training, but it was real life and dealing with the system; I commend HeatingSave for that.

"I like the Helpdesk service that we've had. We don't use it so much now — we don't need to — but I know it's there, and that's important to us."

Understanding the building

This data and the graphs presented by the HeatingSave dashboard have given Mike a much fuller picture of the energy use of the building, with the zones providing a useful view of specific rooms and areas.

"We have a vestry at the back of the church which is a nightmare to heat because it loses so much through the floor into the cellar and through the concrete roof. So our answer tends to be not to spend too long in there!

"We put a HeatingSave temperature sensor in there and made it its own heating zone, so we have all the control we need for it. But what the system tells us is interesting: it never gets up to temperature, even though the system is working perfectly.

"But because of its challenge to heat it, and it being on the same wet system as much of the rest of the building, we've just resorted to accepting it won't get up to temperature. The energy input to do that isn't worth the 10 minutes of comfort for the people in there.

"HeatingSave has given us that understanding of not just that room, but the whole building and its characteristics and spaces within it a lot much more than we ever did — and that is a key output from having the system in place."

Easily adaptable and expandable system

In the years since their initial installation, Fareham Methodist Church has added two more TRVs to their system, which Mike says was a simple process: "I physically put them onto the radiators, but then Anton was able to pick them up and add them to the system remotely. I imagine it would be the same with any new temperature sensors: we could get them added remotely because they're battery powered."

As for further expanding their system, Mike suggests they may look to add more zones in future: "We got it pretty right when we designed it, but I'm probably at the stage where we ought to consider a bit more monitoring, and a few more sensors. We have no controlled heating in our kitchen; we've got a plinth heater in there, but actually it's a room that would be quite useful to have a sensor in."

For Fareham Methodist Church, HeatingSave has provided the solution they needed to improve heating control, something Mike has been happy to discuss with others who might benefit.

"I'm always open to talking to people about HeatingSave; it doesn't have to be a church, but someone with that similar model of multiple spaces and multiple times. And I will start by talking about the room booking system, because for me that is the engine room of the whole system; all the other bits flow from that.

"It would be good without the booking system, but it is wondrous with the booking system.

"For us that is the big benefit: control. That's the joy of using HeatingSave."

If you're struggling with heating your church or community building, talk to our friendly and knowledgeable team.