Willerby Holiday Homes, the Hull-based manufacturer of luxury holiday homes, has invested in a new energy-efficient dust extraction system which has been designed, supplied and installed by Dust Control Systems Ltd.
Established just after the Second World War, Willerby is the UK’s largest manufacturer of holiday homes and lodges, selling its extensive range across the UK and Europe. The company is at the forefront of holiday home design and manufacture, and is committed to the pursuit of environmental excellence at its award-winning, energy-efficient factory, which employs extensive recycling practices and waste reduction processes.
The new dust extraction system comprises an externally-sited Schuko EcoVar 2030 modular chain filter which has a total airflow volume of 135,000m3/hour. Filter cleaning is carried out by a dual cleaning system which employs a cleaning fan housed at the top of the filter, and mechanical shaker system at the base. The energy-efficient system employs three 55kW direct-drive main fan units, which replace the previous three 75kW belt-driven fans, and extract from a total of 40 processing machines.
The filter has rotary valve discharge into a 15kW fan-powered closed-loop waste transfer system which feeds waste directly into two large capacity boxcarts. The new filter plant replaced the enormous drag chain filter, which had been built on top of the factory’s maintenance shop. DCS disconnected the old plant, in preparation for its removal, and installed three 710mm diameter main ducting runs from the new main fans to existing junctions within the factory.
A key feature of the energy-saving installation is the ECOGATE® extraction-on-demand system, which constantly monitors the use of each individual processing machine and automatically regulates the speed of the relevant fan unit accordingly. The system employs an Ecogate greenBOX MASTER SRL controller, motorised gates and sensors at each machine, together with variable speed drives for the three main fans. The required power requirement to each fan is determined by the opening and closing of the motorised gates, thereby only using the exact amount of power required and avoiding energy wastage.
Willerby Holiday Homes contracted DCS to install the new system during the firm’s summer shut-down and Christian Wilson, Facilities Manager, says: “The project required a lot of detailed planning and DCS worked together with us from initial concept through to completion.
They were confident from the outset that they could achieve installation and commissioning within the allotted timescale and that they could attain the levels of savings that they forecasted. I’m pleased to report that they scored highly on both counts; the transition from the old to the new system was almost seamless. And, our production people just love the new system – it’s far more efficient than the old plant, it’s much quieter, and it saves us a significant amount of expenditure on electricity.”
DCS engineers conservatively predicted that the new system would save around £35,000 per year on energy usage, when compared to Willerby’s old dust plant. Following review of stored data carried out after one month’s operation, the annual savings prediction has now been adjusted up to £46,000.