Case Study for Saint-Gobain Weber

Warm Air Heating

Warehouse Heating Solutions

Date: February 2019

Client: Saint- Gobain Weber

Location: Milton Keynes

Customer Brief

OKEL were approached by our client towards the end of 2018 to assist with their heating project which was to replace the obsolete and non-functional floor standing oil-fired heaters installed across 3 of their storage warehouse facilities (approx. 21,800 sq ft per warehouse.)

Our client was wanting to move away from an oil-fired solution and was already in early discussions with Calor UK who were assessing the feasibility of introducing an LPG storage facility to the exterior of the storage warehouses.

OKEL Solution

OKEL visited site to meet with the our client’s Plant Manager to complete a heating site survey and to fully understand our client’s heating requirements, this was to include discussions around the minimum and maximum required temperatures to protect and maintain quality of stock that was to be stored within the warehouses. 

Our client was due a have a follow up meeting with Calor UK the following afternoon and so upon completion of the site survey OKEL’s first task was to calculate the total kw capacity that was required to heat each of the warehouses. This calculation would then assist Calor UK in determining the kw capacity of the LPG tanks that were necessary to fuel the new heating systems and whether enough space was available to the exterior of the premises to house the storage tanks.

It was identified that to achieve the client’s temperature requirements each of the warehouses would require a total of 300 kw of heat.

To create more space on the ground and to deliver an effective and efficient heating solution OKEL opted for a high efficiency wall mounted warm air heating and destratification design for each of the warehouses. Warm air is the most popular form of heating for warehouses and factories that are looking at total heat coverage opposed to spot heating certain areas more commonly associated with radiant heating.

For a broad overview of the heating and cooling projects we’ve been involved in, check out our case studies page. 

boiler
warm air heater in sainst gobain

An expertly designed warm air and destratification system can reduce energy consumption by up to

0 %

Each warehouse design consisted of 3 x 100 kw high efficiency and fully modulating warm air heaters with integral destratification systems designed to deliver an even spread of heat throughout the warehouse.

In addition to the integral destratification systems within each of the heaters, OKEL’s design incorporated the introduction of 4 x heavy duty destratification fans within each of the warehouses. 

Destratification is strongly recommended for large open plan buildings with high apex ceilings as it plays an important role in spreading an even flow of warm air that’s produced by the heaters and preventing the heat from rising and escaping at ceiling height – A carefully designed destratification system, working in conjunction with a warm air heating solution, can significantly reduce energy bills by up to 20% and comes highly recommended by the Carbon Trust.

An additional benefit to destratification is that it not only assists with the spread of warm air in the winter months but also provides a ventilation mode to assist with a flow of cooler air when the outside temperature starts to soar in the summer months. 

As part of the project OKEL’s installation engineers decommissioned and removed from site the old floor mounted Powrmatic oil fired heaters to create more space on the ground.  

Commercial Warm Air Installation and Hand Over

A pre installation engineer site visit took place ahead of the installation to sign off the exact positioning of the heaters and fans to determine the most even spread of heat whilst considering the layout of the warehouses.

Detailed risk assessments and method statements were forwarded to our client for sign off, complete with liability insurance, Gas Safe, electrical and working at height certification for the team of installation engineers working on site. 

OKEL’s team of installation engineers provided our client with a flexible approach to their installation by accommodating our client’s requests for certain parts of the installation to take place out of operational business hours, to include evenings and weekends, due to it not being possible to complete certain working at height tasks due to activities / site vehicle access taking place on the ground level.

To complete each of the project’s electronic copies of Gas Safe and NICEIC certification and user guides for the heaters and fans were forwarded to the client to retain on file.

saint gobain factory

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