BROADLANDS Estate has started preparing fuel for a pair of new biomass boilers that will heat the house after its £4m refit.

The new boilers will be run entirely on wood from the 4,500-acre estate.

Two boilers, each weighing three tonnes, have been delivered to the estate and are waiting to be connected.

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Meanwhile, staff are busy overseeing the chipping of 420 cubic metres of estate wood – three months’ supply – which will be stored in an unused grain shed. Some of the first timber to be chipped was sections of a cedar that stood for many years by the main gate but had to be felled in the summer because of safety concerns.

Robin Hard, events and maintenance manager at Broadlands, said: “To give some idea of the scale of the operation, the quarterly supply of chips will be piled four metres deep in a building of 17 x 20 metres.”

As part of its firm recycling policy, the estate will move away from any unnecessary burning or bonfires.

Robin added: “When you think this fuel was just lying in the woods doing nothing, you see the sense of it. But because we care about wildlife, we don’t just strip out all the dead wood where it lies – we leave environments for bugs and small creatures.”

The boilers will be housed 300 metres from the house and fed automatically.

Less than one per cent heat loss is expected between boilers and house. As the boilers produce very little ash they will only need cleaning out three times a year.