Established in 1959, Plasmor is one of Britain’s largest independent concrete block and block paving manufacturers, supplying over 300 concrete products to the building industry throughout the UK.
Putting sustainability first
Plasmor is at the forefront of innovative, sustainable block construction. All aspects of the company’s product development, manufacturing and distribution processes, as well as its continuing investment in technical innovation, are intrinsically committed to the social, economic and environmental elements of sustainability.
Plasmor has already achieved some major milestones in sustainability, including cutting 423 tonnes of CO2 off its carbon footprint annually by investing in “auto-cut off” technology and operator engagement across all its production facilities; reducing raw material from quarries by 80% thanks to a unique expanded clay process; and reducing carbon emissions at one of its largest concrete production plants by 862 tonnes of CO2 annually.
One of its latest steps in its sustainability journey has been to implement a new curing process at its site in Goole in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Long-standing Ideal Heating Commercial customer Thorpe Eco has worked closely alongside concrete block curing and tile drying specialist ROTHO to produce what they claim to be the greenest curing process in the world!
Increasing capacity, decreasing gas consumption
The original 2,400kW forced pressure jet hot water boiler installed at the Goole plant to heat the oven and deliver the humidity required for the curing process was significantly oversized and not energy efficient.
Thorpe Eco and ROTHO have developed a new curing system that does not require the addition of humidity, and instead works at a lower temperature (35 to 40°C as opposed to 80°C), thus reducing the load required to just 240kW, but extending the curing process from a single day to four. By lowering the temperature and extending the curing timeframe, the humidity inherent in the concrete blocks is sufficient. To accommodate the extra curing time required, the capacity of the oven has been doubled, and it is operated in zones.
With the energy load slashed, the existing boiler has been replaced with four Ideal Heating Evomax 2 80kW commercial condensing boilers operating in cascade. The boilers have been installed with a fully insulated Ideal Heating header kit with a magnetic low-loss header to achieve hydraulic separation. “A magnetic low-loss header means we are able to keep the system as clean as possible”, explains Ashley Thorpe, Director of Thorpe Eco Ltd. “Even though the system is mainly stainless steel, with the Ideal header being made of steel. We just wanted to make sure no debris could get through the system with it operating 9 heat exchangers with small waterways.”
The decision to opt for several smaller boilers rather than a single larger boiler was made by Thorpe Eco for several reasons: “By spreading the load over four boilers, they’re always working at a partial load rather than a full load, which makes them a lot more efficient. It also means it's more reliable and makes maintenance easier and less disruptive,” states Ashley. This innovative system has been designed and installed by Thorpe Eco, without the input of a consultant, yet Ashley Thorpe remains modest about his company’s achievements: “It’s quite a simple installation really, although we have produced our own BMS to directly control the boilers to deliver the heat needed by the oven. So, when the oven’s working at 100%, the boilers know they need 80% of their power to achieve the load.
And when the oven is running at the minimum load of 15 - 20%, the boilers know they only have to run at 10%. They basically modulate perfectly to the oven, rather than operating on/off. This stops a lot of wasted energy just being dumped from the oven into the atmosphere to maintain the correct process temperature, which was a real concern with the previous system.”
Ideal Heating: the reliable option
Thorpe Eco has been installing Evomax 2 boilers for many years, and their familiarity with them was one of the determining factors in product selection for the Plasmor project. “We look after about 15 schools and a lot of them have Evomax 2 boilers, so we work with them quite a bit. They are a very simple boiler to install and use. With Plasmor, this is our first time doing quite a large install like this without a drawing or consultant diagram, so we wanted to use a boiler that we were familiar with and that we knew to be reliable, as well as one that most suited the installation.”
Read the full case study here: Ideal Heating Commercial Plasmor Case Study
