Sheffield Homes, set up by Sheffield City Council in 2004, which manages the continual improvement of council homes across Sheffield, has reduced heating and maintenance costs by  investing in a high efficiency filtration system from IPS for its city-wide District Heating System.

 

The company has a network of boilers and district heating pipe work running throughout the city which supplies heating and hot water to council properties. It is crucial that the water flowing through the pipe work is kept as clean as possible to maintain flow rates and in so doing achieve maximum energy efficiency.

In some cases sections of the pipe network are more than 35 years old. Over time the pipes have collected debris and particles in the water which have caused restrictions in the flow rates to some properties and led to problems maintaining an efficient District Heating System.

Expensive pump and boiler parts and replacements are often required due to these issues, therefore it was felt there was a strong business case to introduce a filtration system to help clean and prolong the life of the heating systems as well as reducing maintenance costs.

Les Gore from Sheffield Homes said:

“We considered two filtration systems and chose the CrossFlowAMF, an advanced media filter from Industrial Purification Systems (IPS). Not only was this system easy to install but, rather than it having to be a permanent fixture, it could be transported to different boiler sites for ‘bolt on’ treatment which we found to be a very economical use of the technology.  IPS was also able to make design changes relating to the size of the filter to meet our specific health and safety requirements.

Steve Cupples, managing director of IPS said:

“For years it has been believed that the filtration of heating or cooling water in open or closed systems is not such a big issue. However the costly damage caused by a build up of contamination, often not even picked up on by the human eye, shows this is not the case.

Additionally, big energy gains of up to 30% can be achieved by cleaning up “dirty” process water used in heating or cooling applications. The CrossFlowAMF can achieve a high efficiency removal rate of over 86% at 1.0 micron in one single pass whereas conventional filters have to undertake multiple passes to get anywhere such efficiency.”

The investment in high efficiency water filtration is part of Sheffield Homes' £669 million spend on modernising homes.

Les Gore added:

“When this filtration technology was first installed our contractors were sceptical of how well it would perform on the dirty coloured water within the system.  However, after only two weeks we noticed a considerable improvement in the water quality.”

Picture: Sheffield Housing Heating/Cooling facility – 'before and after' water samples

By improving heating and cooling systems efficiencies, Sheffield Homes will undoubtedly reap the benefits and see a huge return on their investment in terms of improved efficiency, reduction in heating and maintenance costs and a significant reduction on environmental impact.

IPS can be contacted on 01744 611666 or visit www.industrial-purification.co.uk.