Effective heating solutions for luxury garden pods
Background
Ornate Garden, based in the Midlands and founded in 1987 as Farmers Cottage Lamps, began life supplying a range of hand-crafted Victorian style lighting, gates and garden furniture. Around 11 years ago the company identified an opportunity to develop innovative garden buildings. Now Ornate Garden manufactures a comprehensive range of garden pods and summerhouses.
The first pod was The Rotating Seater that had a permanent opening to provide both ingress and egress for the pod. Later designs incorporated sliding up and over doors and latterly more conventional double-glazed doors. With the inclusion of a door, it became feasible to include heating by means of an electric plinth heater installed in a letterbox located within the fitted furniture.
Originally the company sourced the plinth heaters from an online retailer, but this solution soon became unsatisfactory as there were issues with the unsuitability of the off-the-shelf plinth heater, and it was too difficult to fit into the pod manufacturing process. Despite several attempts to engage with the supplier to find a workable solution that met the needs of Ornate Garden Company Director Wayne Farmer needed to look elsewhere for a better solution. He contacted Smith’s and Simon Butcher, Senior Technical Services Manager at Smith’s, visited Ornate Garden’s manufacturing facility to understand what their requirements were.
The Solution
Smith’s solution was to design grilles for their electric plinth heater that suited the letter-box installation providing an overlap which concealed the letter box opening. As part of the product development Smith’s worked with Ornate Garden to provide a grille solution that directed the warm air flow in 3 directions – left, right and straight ahead. This was crucial to ensure the whole pod was heated with warm air instead of just being directed towards the door.
To further improve the manufacturing and installation process all of the Smith’s heaters are supplied with ‘plug and play’ IEC to C13UK electrical connectors. This means that the electrical system is simplified and straightforward.
To ensure the heating system in each pod is energy efficient an RF room thermostat is supplied. Several timer and temperature control parameters can be set to ensure efficient and economical operation.
Mr Farmer says that the key benefit to working with Smith’s is that he can pick the phone up and discuss his requirements and resolve any issues quickly. He also says that Smith’s was the only company that would work with him to develop an appliance that met his businesses requirements and that this was essential when building a high-quality garden building.