Ballyholme Yacht Club in Bangor is one of the first multiple installations of Andrews revolutionary constant flow commercial water heater system in Northern Ireland. A system of four WSC 44 units serving 15 showers has replaced a boiler and calorifier which used to serve only eight showers and has won an Award from Phoenix Natural Gas, the energy suppliers to the site. According to John Ellis, General Manager Sales of Phoenix Natural Gas, "This concept provides new opportunities for hot water generation utilising gas as the preferred energy efficient fuel where space is too limited for conventional commercial hot water plant.”
" Changes to the facilities were needed for several reasons”, explains Gavin Watson of the Yacht Club. "Ballyholme is the largest active sailing club in Northern Ireland and among the top five in the whole of Ireland. The Club's hot water use is intermittent - normally peaking during open sailing and race events. However, there are members in training for the Olympics and national events who need to be able to use the premises on a daily basis. Previously it was necessary for someone early in the morning to turn on the calorifier, sized to supply all eight showers, in order to heat water for just one or two draw offs later in the day. This of course was very inefficient use of energy.
In addition, the growth in club prestige since it opened over 70 years ago has required that standards rise with expectations including those of the changing facilities, which recently have been upgraded again and the number of showers increased to 15. This ensured that, in August 2003, when Ballyholme hosted a European Championship, the system could cope with providing showers for up to 100 competitors a day in addition to this we will be hosting the Laser Radal Europeans in 2004 for 280 competitors”
Stephen Kane of installing company Central Group Services, comments, "Quite apart from the inconvenience, impracticality and cost of heating the old calorifier, the club does not have sufficient space for a replacement storage system that would be required to supply today's peak volumes of hot water. The WSC 44 units, having such compact dimensions and being wall hung, can fit where most other commercial water heaters cannot. These internal units being room sealed are here installed in a corridor the other side of the wall to where the showers are fitted, releasing the plant room space taken up by the replaced calorifier for other purposes.”
With the Club's usage patterns, an instantaneous hot water supply is much more running-cost effective whilst being able to cope just as economically with individual and race day demands as well as much larger events. This is because each water heater in the system of four will fire only on demand heating just the amount of water actually needed when required, thereby eliminating standing heat losses. A further energy saving feature is auto ignition which means there are no fuel costs when the unit is idle.
The two revolutionary aspects of the Andrews WSC 44 system are firstly, its unrivalled compact size for a commercial water heater, measuring 350 x 350 x470mm - about the size of a small suitcase, and secondly, its ability to deliver on demand at mains pressure a constant flow of hot water at +1ºC accuracy and 89% efficiency. The unit is designed to measure the incoming water flow and temperature via the primary circuit board and modulate the burner up and down to precisely match the load.
Multiple WSC installations, similar to the one at Ballyholme Yacht Club, can comprise up to a maximum of five units manifolded together and balanced simply by means of a Pressure Activated Manifold (PAM) Valve incorporated into the system to ensure the heaters ignite in sequence.
Partly on the strength of the success of these new facilities, Ballyholme Yacht Club has been invited to host another European Championship event in July 2004.
