The Challenge
As with many community buildings, Mandeville Village Hall in Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire had a typical village hall heating system which was inadequate for today’s needs, costly to run and required constant maintenance.
For many years the Hall management had received complaints from hirers about the hall’s heating. The system comprised of wall-mounted electric bar heaters, with 2 or 3 elements, which created hot and cold spots in the rooms – with the emphasis on ‘cold’! With the passing of time, finding replacements for failed elements became more difficult; not to mention more time consuming and costly.
The committee were looking for a village hall heating system which was effective at evenly warming the premises, easily controllable and economic to run. A wide variety of activities, both active and sedentary (e.g. yoga, toddler groups, ballroom dancing, bridge evenings, etc.), required different room temperatures. It was, therefore, important that the new heating system controls were flexible enough to accommodate the varied heating requirements throughout the day.
The constantly used external doors caused cold air to be sucked into the hall each time the doors were opened. Thus a standard convection based heating system, which heated the air that was pulled out of the room, was neither an efficient nor comfortable option.
Out of date system that was expensive and required on-going maintenance.
The hall was a large open space and they required a solution that would provide heating throughout the room.