Page 8 - Holiday Park 2020

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Company News
A hot Tub heating revolution – Deep In The Forest!
Bowman heat exchangers have helped revolutionise hot tub heating for one of the UK’s leading forest holiday park operators.
Guest facilities at UK holiday parks have risen significantly over recent years, driven by the higher expectations of holiday makers and the growing trend for holidaying in the UK.
Forest Holidays, a leader in high quality, low density forest lodge holidays, operates from 11 locations in the UK and have over 600 lodges. In keeping with customer expectations, most lodges have their own exclusive hot tub.
The attraction of hot tubs
Hot tubs have proved to be a desirable attraction and customer demand for them is always high. However, whilst appreciating their importance, Forest Holidays were also aware of problems that can occur when servicing the hot tubs at guest change over times.
Once guests vacate a cabin, staff often have just a few hours to drain, clean, refill and heat them prior to new guests arriving. As many hot tubs are heated electrically, usually with low powered heaters, they can take up to 8 hours to achieve full operating temperature and may not be ready in time for new arrivals – a disappointment for guests and not the best start to a holiday!
high energy costs
The other problem is energy costs. Mains electricity
is the most expensive energy source available and consequently, energy costs of around £500 per tub/per year are not unusual – a significant figure for a holiday park operating hundreds of hot tubs - not to mention the additional loading they put on the parks electricity supply!
A new direction for hot tub heating
Forest Holidays identified the need to find a more efficient heating solution, to reduce energy costs and address the problem of heat up times. After researching a wide range of heating systems, including biomass and heat pumps, an LPG/hybrid boiler system, incorporating Bowman EC80 heat exchangers, was selected as the most appropriate solution, as it would heat both the cabin and the hot tub, reducing both energy costs and the electrical grid loading.
heating hot tubs faster
However, the real bonus has been the much faster heat up time; the 1400 litre hot tubs can now be heated from 6°C (ambient temperature) to 39°C in around 3 hours. And when pre-heated water is used for the initial fill, this time can be further reduced to around 1 hour!
Bowman heat exchangers have proved so efficient that Forest Holidays have decided to adopt them for all their hot tubs and already they are operating successfully at their forest lodges in Cornwall, The Forest of Dean and Beddgelert, Wales.
www.ej-bowman.com