Barningham Parish Church Joins a State of the Art District Heating Scheme Powered by Wood Chips from a Local Forest Plantation.

The village of Barningham has a strong sense of community and celebrates this at regular parish lunches organised in the village hall by the church.  See Barningham Parish Lunch

The Church in Barningham has a small congregation with only 21 people on the electoral role who are responsible for the large church building. This they have found a burden to heat with an ancient oil boiler and being in a rural location there is no chance of mains gas being available.

Existing Church oil 
boiler, which is about
forty years old!







Pennine Biomass has its offices in the village and has experience in developing district heating through biomass boilers, so it was an obvious opportunity for them to develop a district heating scheme for the village.

Barningham Estate has a forestry plantation within a few miles of the village which provides the fuel. The timber is felled, chipped and processed before delivery into the fuel store. 

The scheme includes the Milbank Arms (the village pub), several estate cottages a private house and the church was asked if it also wanted to join the project.

By joining the scheme the church will be able to access cheaper heat; they will stop their dependence on oil, reduce their carbon footprint and demonstrate their care for creation.

Fortunately all the capital costs of the project are being covered by Pennine Biomass ( www.penninebiomass.co.uk ) who will then claim renewable heat incentive (RHI) payments from the government and sell heat to the different users at a rate linked to inflation.

The Church PCC decided to join in the scheme with the Diocesan Advisory Committee endorsing the proposal. The project includes routing heavily insulated water pipes from the new district based wood chip boiler, across the church yard to a heat ex-changer in the boiler house at the back of the church. 

This enables the heat to be transferred into the church’s existing radiator system, so there has hardly been any disruption in joining the scheme.

Heat ex-changers waiting to be installed and the churchyard through which the heating pipes have been routed 

The village district heating scheme boiler house is located in the garden of the Milbank Arms and houses a 200 kilowatt wood chip boiler and wood chip store.

This is the first time a church in the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds will have been heated by wood chips. This will provide the church with a sustainable source of heat well in to the future. The scheme will also save on heating costs, which the church can reinvest in improving the building and mission in the local community.

Switching to a renewable heat source such as a wood chip or wood pellet boiler is likely to be particularly attractive to large rural churches, which are currently using oil or electricity as their main heat source. If a church is too small to justify its own boiler then linking it to other nearby premises can make the whole project stack up and provide wider benefits to the local community.

"Barningham Church is difficult to heat, particularly in the winter. The oil boiler is almost forty years old and certainly not very efficient. When the PCC were offered the chance to be part of the proposed biomass scheme it quickly became clear that this was a great opportunity - too good to miss! We will no longer be reliant on oil, be able to care for the fabric of the church more effectively and have a warmer church." Revd John Richards 

“We are very honoured to have built the first district heating scheme including a church in the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds and would be delighted to help other parishes in the same way.” Andy Howard of Pennine Biomass