District heating is a hit
Rehau’s RAUTHERMEX pre-insulated PE-Xa polymer pipework is helping to deliver a new energy efficient district heating scheme for 37 properties owned by the University of Stirling and managed by Link Group Ltd in Bridge of Allan, Scotland.
The pipework has been installed to provide the district heating main to each of the refurbished properties from a new centralised biomass boiler installed by Angus Biofuels of Forfar.
Angus Biofuels were responsible for the design and installation of the complete M&E system based around a 200KW woodchip boiler housed in a newly constructed boiler house on the site. The RAUTHERMEX pipework distributes the hot water underground at a depth of 0.6m from the boiler to heat exchangers located outside of each property, which in turn feed conventional wet radiator systems.
Simple design
Angus Biofuels chose the Rehau carrier pipework with its closed cell polyurethane foam insulation because of its proven quality and performance. Its critical advantage over conventional district heating pipework is its longitudinal stability which means the pipe does not expand or contract due to temperature fluctuations while in operation. Typically, polymer pipe expands by at least 1% (depending on the material) so a 100m pipe run would need to have an expansion allowance of 1m. However, with RAUTHERMEX, no such allowance is necessary, saving money and simplifying designs.
The RAUTHERMEX pipework is jointed using Rehau’s Everloc compression sleeve system which produces a permanent, leak free joint and the insulating foam achieves best in class Lambda values of just 0.0255 W/mK.
At Bridge of Allan, the district heating main is operating successfully with the boiler and, in line with the stated objectives of Link Group Ltd, is helping to deliver a combination of higher comfort levels and lower energy costs for the student tenants in the properties.
