Choosing the right commercial boiler for your care home
Heating is the lifeline of any care home – ensuring warmth, comfort, and health for vulnerable residents.
Choosing the right commercial boiler is not just a matter of efficiency or compliance; it’s about safeguarding well-being.
With tightening regulations, aging infrastructure, and rising energy costs, care home operators face unique challenges in making the right choice.
In this blog, we’ll guide you through the key factors to consider when selecting a commercial boiler for your care home and explore the major industry hurdles to keep in mind.
The importance of choosing the right commercial boiler for a Care Home
In care homes, where occupants often have limited mobility or compromised health, consistent and effective heating is critical. A well-chosen boiler will:
- Maintain constant ambient temperatures across rooms and common areas.
- Deliver reliable hot water for bathing, hygiene, and cleaning.
- Reduce running costs and improve energy efficiency.
- Ensure compliance with health and safety standards.
Boilers in care homes are required to be operational 24/7, 365 days a year and require a specialist commercial boiler installation to meet these heating demands.
Key Considerations When Selecting a Boiler
Unlike domestic home boilers, commercial systems need to serve multiple rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and communal spaces simultaneously. Undersizing can lead to loss of heat and breakdowns, while oversizing can waste energy.
Your care home boiler solution should be sized according to the heating and hot water requirements of the premises. This will vary depending on the number of rooms within the care home and hot water outlets like taps and shower heads. For example, our Broughton care home boiler installation had to support 42 bedrooms, with 31 of these having private bathroom facilities.
Look for high-efficiency condensing or system boilers rated A or above. Not only do these systems reduce your carbon footprint, but they also offer significant long-term savings on energy bills—a crucial point in an industry with tight budgets and when energy tariffs are so high.
For Energy-related Products (ErP), there’s an A-G scale that ranks appliances based on their efficiency. Under UK law, all modern gas boilers must be A-rated to ensure high levels of efficiency, although it is possible for units to achieve A+, A++, and A+++ ratings.
Lengthy periods of heating and/or hot water outage in a care home can have serious consequences and in extreme cases require residents to be moved to alternative care facilities while repairs are carried out on site.
Obtaining replacement parts for obsolete boiler models can be challenging and it’s important you choose a reputable brand with a proven track record for reliability.
Opt for models with comprehensive manufacturers warranties to save on costly repairs and that offer easy access to internal parts and built-in diagnostics for faster maintenance.
The care industry is heavily regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) who carry out regular assessments to protect the health of both residents and workers.
High standards must be maintained at all times, including temperature control and hot water supply/storage, to avoid significant repercussions for the care home.
To ensure the safety of your heating and hot water systems by ensuring they are all fully installed and commissioned by fully trained and certified commercial gas / electrical engineers to Gas Safe and NICEIC regulations.
Many care homes are exploring greener alternatives like air source heat pumps, air conditioning systems or hybrid systems. If you’re working towards net-zero targets, integrating renewable energy with traditional boilers might be a strategic move.
Efficiency in commercial boilers can be increased further by utilising hybrid fuel types. At OKEL, our designs incorporate commercial boilers that can blend up to 20% hydrogen fuel with natural gas for when this hybrid fuel type becomes readily available throughout the UK’s gas network.
This is one reason why we partner with leading boiler manufacturers like Alpha Innovation and Rinnai UK.
Care homes have a legal requirement to maintain high levels of infection control and prevent the transmission of bacteria through regular specialist cleaning and hygiene.
For this reason the provision of hot water supply is critical to supporting these standards and any boiler system that provides hot water must be reliable and adequately sized so that it can send hot water to the multiple outlets without issue
Industry Challenges in Boiler Selection & Installation
Many care homes operate in older buildings with outdated pipework, asbestos-containing materials, poor insulation, and limited access to boiler rooms. Retrofitting a modern boiler in such spaces often involves additional costs and planning permission.
Tight margins mean every pound counts. While modern, high efficiency boiler systems will save you money long term due to lower energy consumption and associated bills, the upfront investment can be a struggle.
OKEL’s Green funding business lease option enables customers to benefit from the new modern, high efficiency boiler system immediately and to spread the cost over a 60-month term.
Monthly energy savings provided by the new boiler system are offset against the monthly payments.
The care home sector is subject to rigorous CQC inspections and compliance standards. Heating and hot water systems must be up to code to avoid hefty penalties and to ensure continued operation.
The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 contain details of the standards for those who provide and manage health and social care services. The CQC can pursue legal action against providers who fail to meet regulatory standards.
Regulations are also set out by the CQC regarding safe care treatment and care premises. Guidance on regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act establishes that care and treatment must be delivered safely. It states, “providers must demonstrate that they have done everything reasonably practicable to provide safe care and treatment”. This includes maintaining regular temperatures in line with expectations from the Health and Safety Executive.
Regulation 15 concerns the standard of premises and equipment used in health and social care settings. This states “Providers must have operational policies and procedures and maintenance budgets to maintain their equipment, buildings and mechanical engineering and electrical systems so that they are sound, operationally safe and exhibiting only minor deterioration”, which includes the care home central heating system.
Finding experienced commercial heating engineers familiar with care home environments can be a challenge. Planning for installation and future servicing is crucial to minimise disruptions.
Care home owners and managers can often be concerned about the implications of upgrading the boiler system/s on site and the effect it can have on the day-to-day operation of the care home, such as the downtime of heating and hot water.
OKEL has hands-on experience of installing new heating and hot water systems in care homes across the UK for many years and fully appreciates how important it is to ensure that downtime of heat and hot water is kept to a minimum to protect the health and wellbeing of the care home residents.
Any outage that is necessary at the time of switch over must be agreed in advance between OKEL’s lead engineer and the care home management team to ensure that the outage does not interfere with critical day to day activities such as bathing and showering of residents.
During work on a Cheshire care home boiler installation our team worked closely with care home management to determine the best approach that would enable 2 new ATAG commercial boiler systems to be installed with minimal disruption.
Choosing the right commercial boiler for your care home is a technical and strategic financial decision. It impacts comfort, safety, sustainability, and even staff satisfaction. Work with heating specialists who understand the specific needs of the care sector, and don’t be afraid to invest in quality and future-proofing solutions.
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We’re here to support care home owners and managers with boiler selection, installation, and servicing. Improve the heating efficiency of your care home with a commercial boiler from leading manufacturers such as ATAG Commercial, Alpha Innovation and Rinnai UK.