A smarter approach to more sustainable operations

From basins, baths, and showers, to catering and wash down, every care home needs hot water. While most facilities will run on a system based around gas-fired water heaters, the preference for many new builds is to move to electric water heating to take advantage of the increasingly less ‘dirty’ grid. This does have implications for running costs, with electricity on average currently costing as much as 3.8 times that of gas. So why change things? The simple answer is net zero, and the need to be more sustainable. Because of the ubiquitous need for hot water, which can account for as much as 30 per cent of a building’s daily energy demands, addressing how it is secured is one of the best ways of making active carbon savings today

Peak periods

Deploying heat pumps and/or solar thermal to provision the initial preheat is the most logical approach to achieving sustainable water heating, but this is adding further complexity to a process that typically demands a bespoke approach. Every care facility is different. The number of rooms, and facilities such as basins, showers, deeper baths, and, in particular, guest mobility, impact on the sizing.