Specially Designed Chandeliers Give Welcome Heat and Light at St Luke’s Church in Gaddesby

The Challenge

St Luke’s at Gaddesby in Leicestershire is a traditionally built medieval church with high ceilings, and a large open interior. For many years the church had suffered from poor lighting and had no heating so the challenge for Leisure Heating was to design a heating and lighting scheme which would have minimum impact on its listed building status. In addition to the main space for worship, an area at the rear of the South aisle required heating and lighting for use as a children’s play area.

The Solution

By installing 10 specially designed chandeliers in the nave and an additional chandelier over the children’s play area, the church now has bright new LED lighting and an infra-red heating system which primarily heats the congregation rather than large volumes of air. Each chandelier is designed as a medieval cartwheel, in keeping with the church’s age and architecture and carries 6kW of short-wave infra-red heating from three radiant elements. Each unit also carries 40W of LED lighting from eight lamps fitted with Murano glass shades.

The Benefits

The use of Infra-red heating combined with new LED lighting has allowed St Luke’s to benefit from a very energy efficient cost effective system which is relatively simple to install and virtually maintenance free. The new infra-red heating does not need to be switched on many hours before the congregation arrives.  The instant heat up times of short-wave infra-red heating means that the system can be switched on just a few minutes before a service begins.

Quote from David Wyrko, Building Warden and Project Lead, St Luke’s, Gaddesby.

“ From the outset of this project, Leisure Heating have provided an extremely high level of service and have developed an individual design of chandelier that best fits a unique, Grade 1 listed, medieval church building.

The demands of all the agencies involved were met with patience and ‘a can do’ approach and the outcome has been praised by all, but most importantly, by the users of the building.

A member of the congregation over many decades stated that this was the first time that she had attended a service where her feet were as warm as the rest of her body and the Parochial Church Council have welcomed the substantially reduced heating bills.

I would most heartily recommend Leisure Heating to anyone seeking a bespoke heating system for their church as our experience has shown that they can deliver a high quality product to a tight budget which satisfies all needs.”

The Principle of Infra-red Heating

Infra-red heating is based on the transfer of thermal energy by electromagnetic radiation. Infra-red emitters are classified according to the temperature dependent peak wavelength which they emit and can be short-wave, medium-wave and long-wave.

Short-wave infra-red used in our chandelier heaters has the ability to heat people directly without having to heat up the air first. The element used has a thermal response similar to an electric light bulb so is instant. The low-glare coating used on the elements cuts out almost all of the strong red glow usually associated with older infra-red heating. Infra-red heaters can easily be dimmed using optional power controllers.