Heat Exchanger Systems Helps Hospital Meet NHS Emissions Guidance

Two Spirax Sarco EasiHeat™ packaged steam-to-hot-water solutions are providing heating and hot water at Eastbourne District General Hospital’s new Endoscopy Unit, while also helping to meet NHS emissions guidelines. Spirax Sarco also provided expertise to support the project’s design and specification.

The new building housing the Endoscopy Unit must be in line with the NHS’s target of 80% reduction in CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 2050, from a 1990 baseline. Decentralised gas-fired hot water boilers would not have met the emissions requirements, so instead the EasiHeats were specified, using plant steam from the hospital’s existing boiler house.

EasiHeat is a ready-to-install solution that utilises steam in a compact, plate-and-frame heat exchanger to provide instantaneous hot water for space heating or domestic use. The system’s modular design will enable the hospital to more cost-effectively meet its future expansion requirements with two units instead of the four originally thought to be needed.

“By involving Spirax Sarco in the project’s design and specification phase, we were able to save substantial costs by installing just two EasiHeats. That’s because the EasiHeats’ plate heat exchanger design will allow us to simply add more plates into the frame to expand capacity as demand rises, avoiding the need to buy two extra units,” says Mr Paul Gardiner, Estates Officer at Eastbourne District General Hospital. “Even though I have worked with steam for a long time, it is really beneficial to get Spirax Sarco to design the system and have one of their experts come to the site to check everything over.”

The hospital was confident in the reliability and operational cost-saving capabilities of EasiHeats, having previously deployed them to replace calorifiers in the main hospital plant room to eliminate temperature control problems and reduce maintenance. Calorifiers are pressure vessels that must be stripped down regularly for insurance inspections, a task that typically takes several days. EasiHeats do not need to meet this requirement, saving substantial maintenance costs.

Furthermore, the EasiHeat systems were simple to install says Mr Gardiner. “EasiHeat is compact, which made it easier to find the required plant room space in the basement; they were easy to put in. The units were delivered on time and to budget by Spirax Sarco.”

Eastbourne District General Hospital’s new Endoscopy Unit has three dedicated treatment rooms, separate male and female recovery areas, a reception and waiting area for patients along with other storage and office areas. It is situated on the first floor of a new £5.7 million hospital extension.