St Catharine's College, Cambridge

St Catharine’s College, located in the centre of Cambridge and home to more than 600 students, was faced with ageing university boilers that needed parts replacing. They decided to take the opportunity to embark on a commercial heating system upgrade.

After taking advice from their neighbours at King's College who had installed Hamworthy Wessex ModuMax boilers and been very satisfied with how well they performed, St Catharine’s College chose to install the same modular boiler system.

Phil Dean, Clerk of Works at the college, commented, 

“We knew the university boilers were going to need changing in the near future to provide us with better operating efficiencies. It made good economic sense to upgrade now rather than spend money on new parts for the older, inefficient boilers. The previous boilers were Hamworthy Lulworth L10 (1050kW) steel boilers. The other plant rooms at the college feature Hamworthy products so we wanted to be consistent across the site for the ease of service and maintenance as well as familiarity with a product.”

The Solution

Robin Bunton, Bunton M&E Services, has worked with the college for many years as well as with Hamworthy Heating’s agent for the area, Mike Crouch. Robin selected and installed the equipment which included three vertically stacking Wessex ModuMax boilers and factory assembled pipe kits. A total of 9 modules providing 1,980kW output deliver the heating for most of the college. Two 1,000 litre Powerstock Calorifiers connected to the modular boilers provide an indirect hot water solution. 

Three months prior to the university boilers being installed Robin fitted eight MagnaClean Magnetic Filters to help clean the old system of dirt and debris in order to protect the new boilers and improve the efficiency of the heating system. The new pipework for the commercial heating system was fabricated offsite by Bunton M&E to speed up installation on site. 

Since changing the boilers the college has seen a significant amount of energy savings in a relatively short period of time. The Wessex ModuMax boilers are using very little gas and so far they have seen a 25% reduction in gas bills.

Wessex ModuMax boilers are extremely compact and efficient. They weigh less than 1kg per KW output and achieve the highest rating for low NOx emissions (<40mg/kWh)

In this instance, each gas fired boiler consists of three modules stacked one above the other that can accurately match the building load requirements. The modular boilers feature a fully modulating pre-mix burner and standing losses at less than 1%.

Phil Dean concluded,

“Robin always recommends Hamworthy boilers and we have been very pleased with the performance of the products. The vertically stacking boilers save space in the plant room making it easier to get round the boiler for service and maintenance. Plus Hamworthy Heating has a continued commitment to spare parts; making them readily available for a long time.”

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