St Luke's Church Eccleshill - Articles from "The Link"

How to heat the narthex?

(The "narthex" is the glassed-in room at the back of the church building.)

The Annual Meeting at St Luke's, on 14th March, passed off very peacefully, all things considered. The PCC's reports had all been circulated in advance and were passed without a murmur, the new PCC was elected, and in the dicussions which followed there was only one major cause of concern - which was: "What is the PCC going to do to improve the heating of the narthex?" Before the PCC makes a final decision you, the people, should have the opportunity for your four-penny worth.

The narthex originally had two fan-assisted gas-convector heaters. One died and the other got ill. So we got a new one, which puts out more BTUs than the previous two together. Nevertheless it's still cold. On Tuesdays the Day Centre puts the church heating on and turns off all the radiators in the main building: this works fine, but is maybe a little inefficient?

So here are some brainstorm ideas. Maybe they won't all work? Maybe you'd better speak up if you want a say!

We could ...	Pros ...	Cons ...
Do nowt	No cost	Uncaring, sorts nowt
Fit timer on heater	We already have one	Needs brain to operate it
Use main church heat	We already do	Need to turn radiators on & off. Not efficient
Zone main church heating	Fairly quiet	Horrendously expensive as pipe layout is wrong
Install extra gas heater	We had one before so we know it would work	Expensive, noisy, and at wrong end of narthex
Portable calor-gas heater	Movable	Condensation, fireguard, cylinder storage
Overhead bars	Cheap to fit, silent	Hot heads, cold feet
Nuclear reactor	Provides employment	NIMBY. Decommission cost
Users to do aerobics	A leaner fitter church	WCs would need showers
Issue woolly socks	We have the knitters	Laundry? Vicar's feet smell?
Hot water bottles	Re-use water in coffee	Wet patches on the seats?
Underfloor heating	Wearing slippers could reduce carpet damage	Fried children at Squeals on Wheels?

John Hartley