The KP Club, outside Pocklington in Yorkshire, consists of a beautiful 400 acres estate in a park and woodland setting. At the heart of a new development of discreetly hidden chalets lies a stunning 18 hole par 70 golf course, served by a most distinctive clubhouse and restaurant overlooking the 18th green, designed by LKR Architects and known appropriately as the Glasshouse. Everyone knows that people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones, but remember that they should also take very close note of their energy bills since glass frontages are notoriously expensive to heat. The Architects and the KP Management, headed by Managing Director Simon Brown, took good care of this aspect at the planning stage and a network of 4,000 metres of 40mm diameter pipe was laid under the grassed area outside while the Glasshouse was being built, forming the basis of a ground source heating system designed by NIBE Energy Systems and installed by specialist sub-contractor SASIE Limited.
The pipes are buried roughly 20cm below the first line and contain a non-freezing emulsion of glycol and water. The latent heat in the surrounding earth - typically at a temperature between 11 and 12 Degrees Centigrade regardless of season - is absorbed inton the liquid and passed to a powerful NIBE Fighter 1330 unit situated in the Glasshouse. There it is passed through the heat exchange process compressing the liquid to bring it up to a suitable temperature (around 35 Degrees) to run the underfloor heating system and the entire hot water requirement including the showers that form a sizeable proportion of a golf clubs usage.
While the NIBE Fighter heat pump is technically advanced, the theory behind it is comparatively simple: rather like a refrigerator except that in this case it is the heat that is retained and the cooled liquid is recycled.
Ground sourced heating systems have proved themselves extremely effective, especially since ground temperatures remain remarkably stable even in cold conditions when the heating requirement is at its highest. Certainly Simon Brown is delighted with the performance of the NIBE system at the Club and the wait it copes with the rapidly expanding usage of the Glasshouse's facilities. Little do the golfers know that when they pull their trolleys off the final green, that they are walking over the heat source for the hot water in their showers.