Quartz Halogen Heaters Installed in a Large Play Centre in Wirral, Merseyside Merseyside
Project Type
Sports Facility Heating
The Project
On paper, the objective of this project was simple. Design and install a heating system above a café seating area.
Heating a specific area in a large unheated building can be a tricky job and needs to be carefully designed. Throwing a suspended obstacle course with safety nets into the mix becomes an even trickier job!
In this case study, Phillip Lewis, Michael Raynor and their team at Eltom Electrical Contractors overcame a number of obstacles to successfully spot heat a large café seating area in a local play centre. Eltom Electrical are a Wirral-based contractor that specialises in commercial installations. Here’s how this one unfolded.
Quartz halogen heaters heat people not surrounding air making them ideal for localizing heat over a specific target
The Obstacles
Firstly, the play centre is enormous! It has two adjoining indoor football pitches which back directly onto the obstacle course with no separating wall. The centre also has a tall 6m ceiling with no insulation. Off the bat, this ruled out using industrial fan heaters to heat the space as the heat loss, and subsequent running costs would have been incredibly high.
Turning our attention to a radiant heating system, mounting positions then became the biggest issue. As you can see from the photos, the play centre has an obstacle course and safety nets suspended above the seating area. This meant any heating system Phillip and his team installed would have to be carefully designed with safety in mind.
The Solution – Quartz Halogen Heaters
Shortwave quartz halogen heaters heat people directly and do not heat the surrounding air. This makes them ideal for spot-heating areas in large unheated buildings. Quartz heaters were the only feasible means of localizing heat above the seating area.
Also, as the heaters are instantly effective, there is no warm-up time required which keeps running costs to a minimum.
BN Thermic quartz halogen heaters come in several different outputs, finishes and colours
An Eltom Electrical engineer hard at work
The Installation
After much discussion, we collaborated on a design made up of 3 and 4.5kW quartz halogen heaters to be wall-mounted and gripple suspended from the ceiling. The design would provide a footprint of heat over the seating area and would avoid the suspended obstacle course.
The circuits were all wired in SWA and mounted on a tray on the ceiling. The suspended obstacle course made wiring a challenge but the system was installed neatly and discreetly.
Control-wise, the heaters were zoned and controlled with time delay switches meaning they can’t be accidently left on. By zoning the heaters, the end user also can only heat occupied areas which keeps running costs to an absolute minimum.
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