Well, it’s transformed the church really. We were in a situation that many churches find themselves in of our heating actually being condemned, the old gas heating that we had. Like many other churches, we decided that we wanted to become an eco-church, and like many other churches and the rest of society, we’re very mindful of climate change. We wanted to move away from gas heating, so we looked into electricity and electric heating. I, like many people who have been in church for a long period of their life, have got memories of sitting under electric heaters and getting frazzled and fried. I’m glad to say that is not the case with these Herschel heaters. The heat is very different, and it spreads throughout the whole of the church, and that’s been a real benefit to us.
We’ve got heaters upstairs in the sanctuary, but also in a hall that we let out, and in a side chapel, and also the toilets and kitchen as well. The best part is that we can then zone them, so we don’t have to have the heating on in the whole of the church, we can actually have it in the hall if we have a hall letting, or we can just have it in the sanctuary if we’re worshipping.
I would recommend Herschel Infrared to other churches, the system works! As they say. The heat they give out takes a bit of learning to know what fits your building best, but once you’ve done that, it’s a real winner. Unfortunately like most old church buildings, we do get leaks sometimes and we actually managed to use the heating system we’ve got to dry out the wet carpet from the leak.
The benefits I like are that it’s modular, I like that I can control the heating when I’m at home, so if you suddenly need it on for something, I don’t need to rush all the way here. We would like to see some savings in terms of finance, and it’s really low maintenance too.