Braeside House in Devizes is an outdoor education centre, serving the schools and businesses of Wiltshire and beyond. Up to 70 children typically stay for two nights at the centre during March to October. The site is also privately hired at weekends and at other times of the year by a range of organisations and faith groups.
The owners bought the early-1900’s-property from the council in 2019 together with a range of outbuildings which are used for extra accommodation as well as kitchen and dining areas.
Reducing energy across multiple buildings
Energy consumption at Braeside house and improvements to promote a sustainable building and organisation have been the focus in recent years.
Hot water is partly supplied by roof-mounted solar thermal panels. Most of the lighting has been upgraded to LED, and improved boiler controls have been added to help mitigate the use and cost of mains gas. Two electric vehicle charging points enable staff and visitors to charge cleaner, electric cars.
Space heating is still the biggest use of energy at the centre, responsible for most of their energy costs and carbon emissions. When they found out that advice and funding was available, the centre team was keen to understand what other improvements could be made.
Quick wins and future goals
Severn Wye carried out an energy survey of the centre’s buildings in November 2024.
Their business energy specialist identified various improvements that could be made to the fabric of the building to reduce heat loss, such as insulating sloping ceilings on the upper floor of the main building and upgrading single glazing to secondary or double glazing – work that is likely to be factored into future redecorating and refurbishment projects.
In the meantime, replacing some of the old gas boilers and optimising the heating controls offered quicker wins.
In early 2025 the centre had ‘Genius Hub’ smart heating and zone controls fitted which meant they could heat only those rooms that people were using, and to just the right temperature – changes that are expected to reduce their carbon emissions by 26 tonnes a year and energy bills by around £7,833. Their least-efficient gas boiler was also replaced with a new condensing boiler, adding a further two tonnes of carbon saving and £630 savings a year.
The combined improvements offer a 21% saving on their total annual energy costs for a total installation cost of approximately £26,411. The measures were part-funded by Fit for Net Zero and Wiltshire Towns schemes. Braeside’s investment was £11,270 giving them a payback period of 1.3 years.
The planned rebuilding of one of the outbuildings will also be a chance to add a heat pump and solar PV to the site.
“Our survey formed the starting point for our internal conversations about what measures benefited the business most. We have introduced a smart heating control system to allow more effective zoning of the building’s heating, which allows us to be much more efficient in our energy use. We now have a comprehensive report and can use this to target our efforts in the future. We plan to take further measures in the longer term including replacement of all the old heating infrastructure.”
*Heating control and boiler lifetime saving 15 years
