How making energy improvements reduced bills and carbon emissions at the 1990s office building in Kidlington, Oxfordshire of Chapman Robinson and Moore

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Chapman Robinson & Moore is an accountancy firm, located in a 1990s office building on a small business park in Kidlington, Oxfordshire. Their Managing Director was keen to reduce the environmental impact of the business, and so they decided to explore energy efficiency measures to reduce the energy usage of their office space.

About the building

Chapman Robinson & Moore are housed in a very standard office building in Oxfordshire. The building dates from the 1990s and is located on a small business park in Kidlington.

Motivations for making energy improvements

The primary motivation for Chapman Robinson & Moore was exploring what they could do to reduce their carbon footprint as a business. At the time, they were taking a holistic look at the impact of their business in various areas, and this included their office premises.

“We were very conscious of our carbon footprint as a business, and what we can do about environmental issues.” Managing Director of Chapman Robinson & Moore

At the same time, there were elements of the office space that the team felt could be improved to make the space nicer to work in. Particularly, their existing heating system of night storage heaters was clunky and difficult to use effectively – as well as being inefficient.

How did they decide what changes to make?

Chapman Robinson & Moore had an energy assessment by an expert from the Environmental Information Exchange team at Oxford Brookes University – now a project partner for Energy Solutions Oxfordshire’s service – to assess existing energy usage at the building, and potential areas where savings could be made.

The assessment identified some key areas of improvements, including the need to replace their existing heating system, repairing faulty double glazed windows, and increasing employee awareness on energy use in the building.

The report showed that these recommendations would bring about significant improvements, with a predicted19,062 kWh of energy saved every year – representing 7.86 tonnes of CO2 emissions, and £1,916 worth of energy bills. This convinced the team at Chapman Robinson & Moore that they should go ahead with the measures.

Replacing the old heating system with air source heat pumps

One of the most significant changes was to the heating system at the building. The office was previously heated using night storage heaters which had been installed when the building was first occupied in 1990. These are difficult to control and often result in rooms being heated unnecessarily, wasting energy.

The recommendation was that they install air source heat pumps as a way to heat the office efficiently, to a more constant temperature – staying warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Air source heat pumps also use a renewable source of energy (electricity) and so are a low carbon heating system. Alongside the heat pumps, easy-to-use heating controls were also installed into the office and educated the team on the best way to make use of them.

“Now we’ve got a nice comfortable office to work in.” Managing Director of Chapman Robinson & Moore

Repairing and replacing windows – double glazing

Some of the windows around the office building were showing evidence of condensation appearing between the panes of glass, resulting in draughts coming into the building and heat being lost. A simple solution was to replace the glazing to improve the insulation properties of the windows. Draught proofing strips were also added to the front door to reduce heat loss through an existing gap in the door.

Curious about the savings energy improvements could mean for your business or organisation?

Then we’d recommend getting in touch with the team at Energy Solutions Oxfordshire to find out what the opportunities are for your workplace.

You can also take a look at another of their case studies on their website: How energy efficiency improved guest comfort at The Abbey – a 13th century listed building

Energy Solutions Oxfordshire is a complete energy efficiency service helping organisations to stop wasting energy – making cost and carbon savings.