2016 Sustainable Building Awards Build 35 Company: Sustaburn Name: Martin Robinson (MD) Email:
[email protected] Web Address: www.sustaburn.co.uk Address: Bela Suite, Clawthorpe Hall Business Centre, Burton, Carnforth LA6 1NU Telephone: 01524 784323 stablished in 2008, Sustaburn offers a professional, personalised and friendly service from staff who are experts in renewable energy solutions. Martin talks us through the firm’s history and how it has adapted to the ever evolving sustainable development market. “Since inception, Sustaburn has built up a great reputation as reliable, trustworthy and professional installers. We started by offering pellet boilers, and now have a great range of pellet, wood chip and log boilers, as well as pellet stoves and heat pumps. “Now we are the North of England Regional Partners of KWB. KWB Wood Pellet, Wood Chip and Split Log biomass boilers are well-known for their quality, reliability and ease of use. This new partnership is an exciting development, enabling us to deliver our excellent service to a wider area.” As a company Sustaburn installs biomass, wood pellet, wood chip and split log boilers, with sizes ranging from small (e.g. 10kW) to huge (e.g. 600kW). Martin depicts the firm’s service offering in detail and provides a fascinating overview of its latest project. “Here at Sustaburn, we cover both domestic and commercial projects, but one of our biggest areas of works over the years has been the installation of biomass systems in period estate houses. We also supply heat pumps (ground / air), and install underfloor heating, and are about to offer a range of pellet stoves. “Our latest project is a 216kW Wood Pellet system, using two 108kW KWB Pelletfire Plus Boilers. The main constraint we faced was where to locate the boiler room in order to be able to run heat main pipework to feed everything efficiently - the main house, five holiday cottages and a swimming pool. It is especially challenging as the house is built on solid rock. We eventually found that the solution is to house the new boiler system at the end of the new swimming pool building. This has still presented challenges in terms of routing the heat main between trees, but this has been achieved very successfully.” Renewables are a growing market, as more and more people are becoming aware of the reality of climate change and the uncertain future of fossil fuels. One of the main challenges remains The Renewable Heat Incentive. In the early days, back in 2011, it gave the industry a real boost and created massive growth in the industry up until early 2015. However, the way in which the scheme has been implemented has created issues for the sector over the last 12- 18 months: fluctuations and regressions in the RHI funding levels can create a situation where one minute you are busy before the next regression and then everything goes quiet for a 4-6 weeks, and then builds back to being really busy - this can be difficult to manage at times. Despite these challenges, Sustaburn has been highly successful in working around these and providing a superior service to clients, which is all key to achieving the firm’s overall mission, according to Martin. “Our tagline is ‘specialist, dedicated, passionate about what we do’ – which sums up our ethos. We have a wealth of expertise from our highly experienced team, and have been dealing with biomass since before the RHI (unlike some other companies who ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ so to speak). We are dedicated to what we do, and always go the extra mile to ensure we get the right fit for our customers, helping them wherever needed (e.g. with planning requirements, RHI applications etc). “Fundamentally, we are passionate about sustainability: we believe renewables are the future, and that fossil fuels need to be phased out to combat climate change. We try to promote ‘green’ issues on our Facebook page, sharing interesting articles and news items in the world of sustainability, energy and the environment. Our aim is to inspire – and, of course, to create happy customers, with whom we want to build fantastic relationships over the years.” In his concluding comment Martin emphasises his excitement for the future as the firm enters an exhilarating new stage. “Looking ahead, the future is bright for our firm, as we are Regional Partners for KWB in the North of England, and we feel there are still exciting times ahead in biomass. We have just finalised a sole UK distribution deal with Ravelli, a large Italian pellet stove manufacturer, which will enable us to offer efficient, attractive and easy to use wood pellet stoves. “Another key development is the recent creation of our sub company, SustaPlumb, which has been designed to take on general heating and plumbing works, which is something our customers have indicated they would be interested in, and indeed something we have been doing for a little while now. Our team are experienced installers of underfloor heating, for example, which is often the best way to make to most of renewable heating systems, particularly heat pumps, which operate on a lower temperature than biomass boilers, and so suit underfloor heating well. This sub-company will also take on the work we do around the installation of air and ground source heat pumps and we are looking forward to taking advantage of the opportunities this new development will provide us.” Award for Excellence in Biomass Heating Installations – UK & Most Innovative UK Restoration Project: Allan Bank Sustaburn are renowned specialists in renewable energy, supplying biomass boilers, ground / air source heat pumps, and other wood fuel heating systems. Managing Director Martin Robinson talks us through the firm’s service offering and how it aims for excellence in everything it does. E AR160093