Saunton Sands Hotel, Devon

Saunton Sands Hotel is 77-bedroom luxury hotel on the North Devon coast with extensive spa facilities and both indoor and outdoor (summer only) heated swimming pools.

For the previous 10 years the hotel had heat and hot water provided by a 200kW Twin Heat Biomass boiler, with an LPG boiler rated at 330kW acting as back up and peaking capacity. Unfortunately, the Twin heat boiler was unreliable with high levels of maintenance and repairs.

After initial discussions with BBSM, a new Hargassner 330kW wood chip boiler was put forward as a direct replacement of the Twin Heat boiler. To reduce capital cost the existing wood fuel store and feed system was retained and integrated with the new Hargassner boiler.

BBSM offered a turn-key project under CDM regulations. A new design was undertaken to improve system efficiency and functionality which included a plate heat exchanger to hydraulically separate the new biomass boiler from the old hotel heating system to avoid cross contamination and any issues with changes in system pressure.

The project started in May 2023 and the whole project was completed within a 3-week period. The Hargassner biomass boiler has run without fault since May 2023 and the customer has reported that the wood chip usage has dropped significantly, saving money, due to the higher efficiency of the Hargassner boiler and LPG usage has dropped to virtually zero.

There was a requirement for hotel to remain fully open with no interruption in heat or hot water during the project.