A few weeks ago we started work on our exciting new Biomass Boiler project. Growing flowers through the winter months has become increasingly more difficult every year when you look at how much the price of oil has risen over the past few years.
How much does it cost you to fill up your car at the petrol station? £50? £60? To heat our nursery we have 2 heavy oil burning boilers each the size of a minibus, they are fuelled by an oil tank bigger than a double decker bus, to fill up a tank of this size with an ordinary petrol pump would take several days so I’m sure you can imagine how much it must cost to fill up! With production low and demand for flowers flat burning oil is no longer a viable option. So we’re faced with a choice, either stop growing in the winter months (which is not an option after 125 years) or look at alternatives.
After around six months research, discussions, consultations and negotiations we decided Biofuel is the way forward for our business. We talked to many people and many companies making sure we secured a deal that will hopefully secure our business moving forward for years to come. We chose to go with a wood pellet burning boiler, this will enable us to achieve our required level of heat for a much longer period of time while saving us many thousands of pounds on the cost of the fuel. In effect we will now be able to run heat on our nursery from October to April without worry instead of anxiously watching the weather forecast every morning praying for it to stay mild.
The project kicked off last month when we started clearing the site which for the past 30 years has been our spare parts yard. Then we were ready for phase one. We were joined by Russ & Dave, They’re job was to lay the ground works and concrete base for the buildings, the weather held fair and 7 days their work was done.
To the side you can see day by day pictures of how the project is moving along.
