Challenges of Care Home Heating
Care home residents deserve a safe, comfortable, and welcoming environment, and that depends on more than just heating. Reliable warmth and a constant supply of hot water are essential to residents’ health, dignity, and day-to-day well-being year-round.
Delivering this consistently, however, is far from simple. Inefficient heating and hot water systems can drive up operating costs, increase the risk of breakdowns, demand frequent maintenance, and significantly inflate your carbon footprint.
Keeping residents warm, safe, and comfortable and with dependable access to hot water for bathing, cleaning, and infection control, is a top priority for every care home. Achieving this means addressing several complex and closely connected challenges, including:
Reliable heating, all year round
Care home residents need a warm environment throughout the home all day, every day. For hygiene purposes, residents and care workers need constant access to temperature-controlled hot water.
Tackling rising energy costs
Care homes are often operating on tight budgets. But with inefficient heating systems running 24/7, utility costs can put your finances under serious pressure.
Meeting strict regulatory requirements
The UK care industry is heavily regulated, with homes subject to regular and thorough inspections. As a result, an ineffective or outage-prone heating system can lead to significant repercussions.
Reducing your environmental impact
Regulators and care home residents will expect owners to proactively limit their carbon footprint. This requires a modern heating system tailored to the needs of the building.
Why You need a Bespoke Care Home Heating Solution?
At OKEL, we know that no two care homes are the same. From building age and layout to resident numbers and daily usage patterns, a wide range of factors influence how heating and hot water systems need to perform.
That’s why we design and deliver bespoke heating and hot water solutions, carefully tailored to your care home’s specific requirements, and that supports:
Resident comfort and wellbeing.
Variable usage patterns.
Compliance and safety.
Energy efficiency and cost control.
Reliability and resilience.
Sustainability and future proofing.
Care Home Case Studies
Car Home Air Conditioning Solutions
Air conditioning is often associated with keeping spaces cool during the summer months, but modern air-to-air heat pumps deliver far more than cooling alone.
These advanced systems provide highly efficient heating and cooling, making them an ideal solution for maintaining a comfortable, consistent indoor temperature throughout the year and with an excellent Coefficient of Performance (CoP) that ensures more heat is generated for every unit of energy used.
In addition, modern air-to-air heat pump systems incorporate high-quality air filtration, helping to improve indoor air quality by reducing the circulation of germs, bacteria, and allergens.
This means residents benefit not only from a comfortable environment, but also from a healthier space that supports wellbeing and helps reduce the risk of illness.
Excellent energy efficiency:
Air-to-air heat pumps offer an outstanding Coefficient of Performance (CoP), delivering more heat per unit of energy used and helping to reduce running costs.
Year-round comfort
One system provides both efficient heating and cooling, maintaining a stable, comfortable temperature for residents all year round.
Healthier indoor air quality:
Built-in air filtration helps reduce airborne bacteria, allergens, and germs, supporting resident wellbeing and lowering the risk of illness.
Commercial Boilers for Care Homes
Care home heating systems often operate around the clock, making boiler efficiency critical to resident comfort and cost control.
Ageing or outdated systems can lose up to 40% of their efficiency, resulting in uneven heating, increased breakdowns, and rising energy bills.
At OKEL, we tackle this by designing bespoke heating solutions specifically for care homes, incorporating high-efficiency commercial boilers from trusted manufacturers such as ATAG Commercial, Alpha Innovation, and Rinnai UK.
The result is reliable, consistent warmth for residents, improved energy performance, and lower long-term operating costs.
High-efficiency performance:
Delivering more heat using less energy.
Reliable, proven technology:
We supply products only from leading commercial boiler manufacturers.
Reduced maintenance costs:
Thanks to modern, robust system design and comprehensive manufacturers’ warranties.
Longer system lifespan:
Providing dependable heating for years to come.
Rinnai Hot Water Boilers
Providing your care home with a reliable, energy-efficient solution for delivering consistent hot water, day, and night.
Designed to meet high-demand environments, Rinnai systems ensure residents always have access to safe, dependable hot water for bathing, cleaning, and infection control.
With fast response times, precise temperature control, and proven long-term reliability, Rinnai hot water boilers support resident comfort, operational efficiency, and compliance, giving you complete peace of mind.
Consistent hot water supply:
Reliable, high-demand performance ensures residents always have access to safe, comfortable hot water.
Energy-efficient operation:
Designed to deliver more hot water with less energy, helping reduce running costs.
Fast, precise temperature control:
Supports hygiene, infection control, and resident comfort while minimising waste.
On-demand heating:
Units only heat water when needed, eliminating the cost and energy wasted on storing hot water.
Partnering for a Sustainable Future
Sustainability is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a priority for forward-thinking businesses. At OKEL, we’re committed to supporting our customers in achieving their environmental and energy-efficiency goals through innovative, future-ready solutions.
Every bespoke system we design is built with energy efficiency at its core. This not only helps lower your operational costs but also supports your wider sustainability ambitions, whether you’re working toward green certifications, carbon reduction targets, or simply looking to demonstrate your environmental responsibility.
With OKEL as your partner, you gain more than a high-performance system; you take a meaningful step toward a more sustainable future for your business and the communities you serve.
Lower Energy Costs
Reduced Emissions
Sustainability Future
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is OKEL's process for installing a care home heating system?
At OKEL, we recognise that every care home has its own unique heating and hot water requirements, which is why we offer a design and installation solution carefully tailored to meet those needs.
Our process begins with an on-site consultation to discuss what you need regarding heating, hot water, and temperature control. We’ll perform a survey of the care home to ensure that all your residents’ needs are taken into consideration. From there, we’re able to design the ideal low-energy solution to provide optimal comfort levels in a cost-efficient manner. We then consult with your staff to develop an installation plan that reduces the disruption to your residents and limits the risk of downtime.
We know how challenging and expensive heating a care home can be, and with the rising cost of energy, it’s essential to consider running costs in our overall designs.
We create heating designs that include the highest efficiency commercial boilers, from leading manufacturers such as ATAG Commercial, Alpha Innovation and Rinnai UK. Not to mention, all our systems are Hydrogen Ready, which means they’re capable of blending up to 20% Hydrogen with natural gas for when this greener hybrid fuel type becomes readily available throughout the UK’s gas distribution networks.
- What types of heating solutions are popular in nursing homes?
When we complete your initial consultation, our team will come up with a variety of solutions, allowing you to choose the one that suits the business best. Different nursing home owners prefer different ways of heating their property, but these are some of the most popular appliances:
- New commercial boiler systems
- Air conditioning
- Electric radiators
- How long will my new heating system last?
We use only the best quality components for your new heating system, with everything from the boiler to the supporting plant room pumps and equipment all being built to last. If treated with care and regular servicing and maintenance from an approved heating engineer, you can expect a newly-fitted heating system to last at least 10 to 15 years at a minimum.
- How much do heating solutions for care homes cost?
Without a thorough inspection of the care home, there is no way to answer this question with any kind of accuracy. Care homes differ wildly in both their size and layout, which makes a generic answer all but impossible.
We understand that nursing homes are businesses and that you need an affordable heating system, so we do all we can to deliver a solution that offers real savings and a good return on your investment.
Our heating engineers will be able to provide you with an estimate for your new system following your initial consultation. Once the planning phase is complete, you will get an accurate quote for our work, with no obligation to proceed any further. Alternatively, you can spread the cost with Green Funding Lease Plans.
- How do I know if my care home needs a new heating system?
If your energy bills are going through the roof, it could be because your existing heating system is dated and inefficient and therefore in need of replacement or upgrading. It’s a provable fact that most heating solutions deteriorate over time, and if yours has been in place for a decade or more, it will only become more prone to breakdowns and higher than necessary energy bills.
If your residents and their families are complaining about the temperature throughout the care home, that is another sure sign that you should act. Failure to do so runs the risk of affecting residents’ well-being and Care Quality Commission scoring.
If you’re not sure whether a new heating system is the answer, arrange a free consultation with OKEL today. We can take a thorough look at your property and propose several alternative options for you.
- Who can install heating systems in care homes?
If you are planning to install a new heating solution into a commercial premises that involves a gas-fired boiler system, then you will need to instruct a GasSafe-registered engineer who is certified to work on commercial properties.
Although a domestic engineer has experience in the installation of boiler systems, they do not have the required experience, qualifications or gas safe ticket that is necessary for commercial applications and would therefore not be able to provide you and your insurance provider with a commissioning certificate to prove that the new system has been fitted to current safety and gas safe regulations.