Based in the beautiful mid-Devon rural countryside, the property comprises of a 6 bedroom period manor home, a separate two bedroom cottage and three individual holiday lets converted from a former outbuilding. A major renovation by an owner with a clear intention: to modernise a substantial period estate without losing what made it worth buying in the first place. A combination of a retro installation, a major refurbishment and a new build all on one site.
Renovating a property at this scale, with the heat loss that comes with a manor house of its age, is exactly the kind of project South West Heat Pumps takes on. Between the size of the house and the number of separate living spaces needing heating and hot water under one system, several companies had already been reluctant to support this project. We were recommended to Mr Ringrose by the owner of a nearby period property owner who has recently worked with us on a similar project.
Investment Cost Details & Upfront
A project this size represents a serious investment. We were able to detail the scale of the investment, outlining the National Grid transformer upgrade costs and produce a detailed quotation and performance calculation to support the investment decision. This clarity and transparency was central to the decision to proceed.
A 75kW system, serving five separate spaces
The estate didn’t have a large amount of open land for a horizontal ground array a 75kW system needs. As a result, the solution was to drill ten boreholes, 105 meters deep – over a kilometre of boreholes in total. This work was undertaken by a specialist contractor. This array would serve a 75kW system, a genuinely large installation, sized to heat and provide hot water for the manor house, the cottage, and all three holiday lets from one heat pump. Getting the sizing right here mattered: too small, and five occupied spaces are competing for capacity; oversized without reason, and the running costs stop making sense.
Emitters design for each property
For the main manor house and self contained cottage radiators were sized for each of the 22 rooms and upgraded where required. For the holiday lets, underfloor heating was installed throughout. Our team worked alongside the onsite team, National Grid, drillers to connect the array back to the plantroom, install the underfloor heating, radiators and plantroom equipment to provide heating and hot water and remove the use of two expensive oil boilers.
