New Heating Solution from Armstrong
Armstrong has launched a new generation of its Tenantherm space heating and hot water solution for apartment blocks and social housing schemes.
Building on its popularity with landlords, property developers and contractors, the new Tenantherm unit offers all the benefits of its predecessor, but has a lower up-front cost, and is suitable for integration with renewable technologies to help meet carbon reduction objectives.
Tenantherm offers significant advantages for landlords and property developers. Instead of requiring individual gas boilers and cylinders to be installed in each flat, Tenantherm is a compact, easy to install, fully integrated thermal interface unit which provides highly efficient heating and hot water from a centralised heat source. The Tenantherm unit acts as a thermal interface between each apartment and a centralised system. With no gas boilers required in apartments, this removes all problems associated with mandatory gas safety inspections.
Tenantherm units fully separate the tenant’s system from the landlord’s system. Individual metering (for both energy and water) is available, to provide separate billing for each property. There are a range of meter reading options including manual, optical, radio reader or centralised/BMS reading using M-bus.
By enabling landlords and property developers to harness the greater energy efficiency opportunities of a centralised system, Tenantherm has a particular capability to assist local authority and social housing landlords to achieve their carbon reduction objectives. The pre-assembled Tenantherm units are integrated with Armstrong’s MBS highly-efficient heating solution to provide a complete off-site manufactured system which arrives at site requiring only final connection. The centralised system offers outstanding energy efficiency through integrated control of low carbon condensing boilers and variable speed pumps, and can easily integrate with other low and zero carbon renewable heating solutions.
The range incorporates two types of Tenantherm unit:
- Single system – for radiator/under floor heating circuits. Can also be used in conjunction with a storage cylinder with a coil for domestic hot water.
- Dual system – one circuit dedicated to radiators or under floor heating, and a second circuit for instantaneous hot water.
The units are housed in compact lockable cupboards (dimensions 444mm x 195mm x 620mm), freeing up space for the tenant. There is also no need to install an unsightly flue or costly flue manifold. As the system is provided fully-assembled, final installation can be achieved simply with semi-skilled labour rather than requiring registered CORGI or G3 personnel. In addition, there is no need for stored water in a system of this type, so the risk of Legionella is eliminated. And as, the central heating boilers operate at lower temperatures, the formation of lime scale in hard water areas is minimised.
Dominic Cutts, Director – Systems Solutions Group, Armstrong explained, “The regulatory framework for residential letting and community housing schemes is placing a growing burden on landlords and property management companies. This is happening at a time when rent arrears are on the increase, and profitability is being squeezed. Tenantherm removes the financial burden associated with annual gas inspections, and opens up new energy efficiency opportunities that are simply not available where individual boilers are installed in each property. The new generation of Tenantherm unit offers an even stronger proposition, delivering reductions in up-front cost, as well as being ready for renewables.”
Picture: New Tenantherm unit (Image: Armstrong)
