This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Work to install eco-friendly heating in Bath Abbey using hot water from the city’s Roman baths is beginning.

Contractors are surveying the great Roman drain, which carries steaming water from Bath’s hot springs to the River Avon, as part of a project to use the springs to warm the nearby abbey that starts on Tuesday.

Every day, 1.1m litres (250,000 gallons) of hot water flow through the Roman baths from the thermal spring located at the heart of the site. A large quantity of this hot water eventually ends up in the Avon via the great Roman drain.

When harnessed and converted, the abbey says it could potentially produce 1.5MW of continuous energy to support a 200kW ground-source heat pump system.

Isoenergy, a renewable energy company, will be exploring the great Roman drain to plan how to install heat exchangers in the structure as part of the abbey’s £19.3m Footprint refurbishment project.

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Alix Gilmer, Footprint’s project director, said: “The abbey’s Victorian heating system is sadly outdated, inefficient and expensive to maintain. This combined with the work we’re doing as part of our Footprint project to repair the abbey’s collapsing floor makes this the ideal time for us to install a new underfloor heating system and is a truly exciting way of using Bath’s most famous resource to create sustainable energy.”

Edward Levien, commercial director of Isoenergy, added: “The drain survey marks the first practical step in installing what is one of the world’s first hot spring heating systems. Our engineers will be taking measurements and planning how the heat exchangers will be installed in the great Roman drain beneath York Street so work can be carried out with minimal disruption to the drain and the road above.”