A new Edinburgh nursing home is benefitting from a tailored and flexible heating and hot water supply thanks to the installation of a cascade boiler system from Alpha Heating Innovation.

Built on the site of the old Bonaly Primary School, Thorburn Nursing Home is a 34 bedroom residence just outside Edinburgh city centre. The new heating system was designed and installed by McAusland Ltd M&E Contractors, who had recently started using Alpha’s boilers on other projects.

Due to the demanding heating and domestic hot water needs of the nursing home, Brian Gray, managing director of McAusland, decided to use two Alpha CD70S boilers working in a cascade installation, along with a low loss header and advanced cascade management system. The controls had to manage the boilers’ sequencing, the timings and temperatures of two heating circuits and one domestic hot water circuit, which supply two 800 litre cylinders.

Including a cascade management system offers almost limitless possibilities, according to Justin Jearum, Commercial Product Engineer at Alpha, who specified and commissioned the cascade management system at Thorburn.  And one of the first selected options for the nursing home was the legionella protection.  Our cascade manager has a flexible anti-legionella function, which was enabled to ensure the boilers heat the cylinders on a daily basis to raise the water temperature to 60 degrees, thus destroying any potential growth of the dangerous legionella bacteria. In a nursing home, where the majority of occupants are vulnerable people, this facility offers peace of mind for the residents, their families and the nursing home owners.

The system has also been set up to rotate the lead boiler at set intervals. This means that should demand fall and one boiler shut down, it doesn’t continually rely on the other boiler to deliver the required heat. Evenly distributing the responsibility leads to less wear and tear on the boilers. The nursing home is split into two zones, each with the addition of weather compensation for extra operating flexibility and greater control over when the boilers fire up.

Brian Gray said: “Justin talked us through the entire specification of the cascade management system and came up to commission the boilers when the project was completed. Through the CMS we were able to offer unrivalled flexibility and really tailor the system to the needs of the owners and the residents.”

Justin Jearum added: “Our cascade management system is designed exactly for situations like Thorburn. Working closely with Brian and the owners on the specification meant we could programme the system in line with their requirements and provide peace of mind for efficiency, safety and longevity.”