Commercial fit-out and joinery fabrication specialist Interserve Retail & Interiors moved into 44,000ft² premises in Christchurch three years ago from a site near Bournemouth, in order to gain additional production space.
The £15-20m turnover company now employs 120 staff and numbers John Lewis, Thomas Cook, Fortnum & Mason, and Debenhams among its customers. It also works for luxury yacht manufacturer Sunseeker and the De Vere hotel group and provides its products, and services to sister companies in the Interserve group working in the schools and hospitals sector.
Working in MDF, chipboard, hardwoods, laminates, veneers and solid surfaces, Interserve uses a comprehensive range of CNC production equipment, plus beamsaws, ripsaws and edge banders.
The company invested more than £2m in revamping its Christchurch premises, a key part of which – and one which boosts its green credentials – was a new combined waste extraction and heating system which recycles the dust and waste produced in manufacture and transfers it via a biomass system to heat the factory.
Interserve chose a system from Bourne End-based Wood Waste Control (Engineering) Ltd, one of Europe’s leading waste extraction specialists.
Warm air heater
Wood Waste Control specified a system whereby waste is ducted from individual machines to a WFS13/5J silo filter with 20,000cfm extraction capability and then transferred via a WRV100 rotary valve and is picked up by a pneumatic transfer fan which directs it into the silo of a WWA25 1 million BTU warm air heater where it is burnt to heat the factory.
In addition, a Reinbold 22kW AZR 800S chipper is used to incorporate larger waste and a separate WFB13/2 filter is used to handle fire-rated materials that can’t be burned for heating.
“The new heating system was a key part of our environmentally-conscious approach to the new building,” said Interserve head of production Marc Allen. “We felt recycling via a biomass system was a superb way to reduce waste while cutting heating bills.
“The system is man enough for the job, even in the depths of winter, and when we’re working around the clock everyone in the workshop is warm. It is an integral part of the factory and we couldn’t operate without it.
“We have now cut the amount of waste going to landfill from eight skips each month to just one – and that’s for the specialist fire-rated materials that cannot be incorporated into the recycling system – and we are on course to recoup our entire £112,000 investment in the system within the next year.”
All Wood Waste Control equipment meets COSHH requirements and can stand alone or be used in conjunction with total-extraction return air heating systems. And integrated waste and heating systems like the one installed by Interserve can be used wherever wood waste is created, from manufacturing to joinery shops and merchants’ milling operations where ‘free’ heat is particularly welcome.
