A modern heating system for a leading woollen mill with traditional roots dating back to 1837
Del Sol provides an updated heating system for Abraham Moon.
Background to Abraham Moon
Abraham Moon & Sons was founded in 1837 in Guiseley, West Yorkshire. In the early days, Abraham Moon would sell yarn to families or pay weavers to create fabrics out of his yarn and then sell the finished goods to the community. After years of this and a good relationship with the community, he expanded his business.
In 1868, he had a three-story mill built in Guiseley. The Yorkshire location was perfect for wool production, with soft water ideal for scouring the fleece and a newly built railway to Leeds running right behind the building.
In 1902, the original mill burnt to the ground but was quickly replaced by a large one-story mill built in its place. The mill has also now become fully vertical, meaning everything from processing raw fleece to dyeing to finishing the fabrics happens on-site.
The same mill that is still used to this day. The current mill is also one of the few vertical mills still in use in Britain; most wool production does not take place entirely in one facility.
You can watch Abraham Moon’s 175th Anniversary video to give you a sense of scale of the project.
The heating system at Abraham Moon
Just before Christmas 2022, Del Sol received a call from Abraham Moon making an enquiry about updating the heating system. Based in the premises of the factory that was rebuilt in 1902, the mill was operating an old heating system that was fed from a central boiler.
The heating system was essentially a collection of inefficient steam-heated blowers that needed badly needed updating.
The project was exactly the kind of challenge we like at Del Sol
In January 2023, we visited Abraham Moon and had a full tour of the building and the solid steam system. The company planned to upgrade the old steam boiler in their Dye House with a new modern steam generator and a standby boiler. This meant we had to find another way of heating the production areas that relied on steam heaters.
Scoping the project
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Step One: Survey and scoping project
Our first step was to do a full survey of all the heating and pipework in the building. We met and spoke with the main engineer, the production staff and shift managers to get to grips with the challenges caused by the old system, how it was managed and where the main issues were.
Our first proposal prompted the need for further discussion with the MD, Chief Engineer and Financial Director. We discussed the benefits of putting a computer-controlled energy management system in place and the need for more heaters than we had originally suggested. With an updated proposal, the project plan and quotation was accepted and started at the beginning of April 2023. -
Step two: Pipework
The pipework throughout the mill was a mammoth task, not only for the size of the factory production areas, but because of the age of the building. This required some smart thinking in order to ensure the heating could get to right places without disrupting the day to day working of the factory.
The pipework took around six weeks to complete.
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Step three: Installation of heaters, ducting & recovery units
With the pipework in place, the next big task was the installation of new heaters, ducting and the placement of heat recovery units. This proved challenging as some of the heaters had to be brought into some of the small plant rooms in kit form and then built up in situ, replacing the old steam heaters.
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Steps four & five: Controls and gas connection
The remaining aspects of this first phase of the project with Abraham Moon was to fit the computer-controlled energy management system (using our partner Clarke Controls) and make the final gas connection.
The system was up and running and fully operational by 14th August 2023.