Nuttall Farm Case Study

Nuttall Farm is located in a tranquil valley on the steep slopes of Marcle Ridge and was renovated in 2022 and needed a revamp of it's old oil fired heating system replacing it with a HDG F Series log boiler.

Nuttall Farm was an old, neglected property in much need of modernisation with a sympathetic hand. Enter Elliot Weston, a man with a vision, imagination and a young family to nurture, he set about renovating the house and some of the nearby farm buildings.

The old system 

The old heating system, as is typical in old rural properties like this, comprised of an oil boiler. 

The Plan 

Heating and supplying domestic hot water to a farm house, farm office, staff room with showers and workshop as well as hot water for washing pedigree Hereford cattle for showing requires a well thought out and planned district biomass heating system. The first thing to do is establish what the total heat demand is, by working the size and heat loss of each building, the total scale of the system can be calculated. 

The design needs to adequately heat the following buildings; 

• Main Farm House - Heating 342m3 approx 17kW (1314hr) 22,300kwh / Domestic hot water 3kW (4hr/day x 200) = 1800kwh
• Office, Staff room and workshop - Heating 340m3 17kW per annum (1314hr) 22,300kwh / Hot water commercial (1 hour per day x 200) 600kwh

Total kwh/year = 47,000

With this information a 50kW HDG F series log biomass boiler was specified for the job. This boiler runs on spilt logs, and the obvious choice as some could be sourced, free of charge, by properly managing the hedge rows and woodland providing free fuel. To add to the free energy party, solar thermal panels were added to the roof nearby farm buildings, with both of these heat sources heating a 3000 litre accumulator in the boiler room. The old oil boiler is to be kept as a backup boiler for when the Biomass boiler needs servicing.