This recent barn conversion is used to run arts and crafts courses, including some with heavy hot water requirements such as linen dying, throughout the year. The building is arranged over three floors with underfloor heating throughout and an MVHR system. It has been refurbished to a high standard of insulation and airtightness.
The main components of the heating and hot water system are an 8kW heat pump and a 30-tube solar thermal collector linked to a 210 litre unvented hot water storage cylinder. The heat pump sources energy from three 40m slinky ground source collector loops.
The solar thermal collector is sized to provide around 70% of the estimated annual domestic hot water usage. To enhance the solar contribution and minimise use of the heat pump the storage cylinder includes two solar coils. Heat is initially directed to the upper coil; when the upper cylinder reaches its target temperature further heat is diverted into the lower coil.
To offset electricity consumption a 3.04 kWp photovoltaic array is mounted on the south west facing roof of an adjacent cow byre. This is connected via a sub-distribution board to the main barn conversion. The array comprises 16 Upsolar M190M modules linked to an SMA SB3000HF inverter.
