Potterton boiler for Potter’s castle
A Potterton Commercial Eurocondense Two boiler has been installed to provide energy-efficient heating at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland during a refurbishment of the guest hall — the castle’s main banqueting suite. This is the second largest inhabited castle in England and will be known to readers as the setting for Hogwarts School in the first two Harry Potter films.
The guest hall was previously heated by cast-iron pipework in purpose-made ducts covered by a steel grid and by convectors fed from boiler plant in another part of the castle. This installation had reached the end of its useful life.
The new heating system consists of new finned heating pipework in the existing perimeter ducts covered with a painted cast-iron continuous strip grille.
Steel panel radiators are fitted in the minstrels’ gallery. To ensure that the newly laid oak floor is maintained at a constant temperature, an underfloor heating system is installed as a separate zone.
The Potterton 500 kW modular gas boiler that serves both systems has been installed in the basement plant room below the banqueting reception area.
Consulting engineers for the project were A. E. Robb & Associates.
