Further investigations into restaurant heat and energy requirements identified the huge potential for heat recovery from the restaurant’s exhaust stream. Due to the nature of ventilating commercial kitchens, a significant amount of energy is expelled from the air that’s become contaminated by the products of the cooking process.

Neil realised nobody had yet made a solution for recovering heat from dirty extract air systems.

The client was keen to reduce the amount of heat wasted in this way, so Neil and Michael spent many hours configuring existing splashback pillow plates into ‘banks’ to sit within the duct’s air stream.

They created a rudimentary wind tunnel, proving that the idea had merit and was well worth pursuing further.

Milestones

• During a site visit to quantify the DexTherm splashback system function, a further heat recovery opportunity was discovered on the restaurant roof.
• Neil, Micheal, and Hallam Energy conducted DexThermic proof of concept studies. They used the existing DexTherm splashback technology reconfigured into banks and inserted into a test duct (a rudimentary wind tunnel in the farm workshop).