Swan House project shortlisted for national award

Published by keeley for Longhurst Group in Housing and also in Communities, Environment

A project completed in partnership between L&H Homes, Aaron Services and Vaillant was shortlisted for Sustainable Project of the Year at the national Heating & Ventilating Review Awards.

The shortlisted project has provided a significant reduction in heating costs for residents living in a grade 2 listed building, Swan House in Boston, which was originally built in 1877 for the processing of feathers for use in pillow cases. The factory was converted into 23 flats in 1998.

As with many old properties, improving the heating efficiency was quite a challenge. Swan House is a grade 2 listing property, so the front facing windows had to stay single glazed, and all flats feature high ceilings. This meant poor thermal efficiency in the flats and high fuel bills.

Darren Kendall, Project Manager at L&H Homes explains the project further, “We wanted to look for a sustainable, energy efficient solution for our customers, so we worked with our partners, Aaron Services, and heating product manufacturers, Vaillant to come up with a scheme that would meet the needs of our residents.” 

Jon Posey, Operational Director at Aaron Services said, “We finished the project in early 2012 after around 10 months of work. We created a new plant room containing 4 new communal gas boilers, putting new radiators and heating programmers in each flat, as well as installing solar panels on the roof to provide a large proportion of the building’s hot water demand.”

Darren added, “We also fitted secondary glazing to the front façade of the building which has significantly increased thermal efficiency and reduced the noise from the busy street in front of Swan House. The residents are very pleased with the work and have seen a reduction of about 60% on their fuel bills.”

Competition in the sustainability category came from ABB for Manchester Airport, Mitsubishi Electric for St Mungo’s charity in London and Toshiba who worked with Boots and the eventual winner, Ingleton Wood for their work on a Dementia Intensive Care Unit in Norwich.

John Bailey, Commercial Systems Director at Vaillant commented, “We are delighted that Swan House has achieved the accolade of being highly commended for this award. The project is a testament to how older buildings can be refurbished and make the most of modern technologies without compromising their heritage. It was also a great pleasure to be involved in a project where the client, the contractor and the manufacturer worked together to achieve a successful end product that is appreciated by the tenants.”