FEATURE: SUSTAINABILITY Making the grade on heating
robust control strategy includes accurate time and temperature settings to avoid unnecessary energy use during weekends and holidays. Where appropriate, adding weather compensation control and zonal heating will ensure the system adjusts to external temperatures and allow schools to heat only the areas being used.
Where draughts are a problem and budgets allow, estate managers should prioritise improvements to the building fabric to minimise heat loss. This may include ensuring doors and window frames are properly sealed, upgrading insulation in walls, roofs and floors and installing triple-glazed windows. It is just as important to inspect and maintain pipework lagging, as poorly insulated pipes can lead to significant heat loss before warmth even reaches the intended spaces.
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s the education sector awaits an update on school heating upgrade funding, Neville Radford, Specification and Sector Manager at Baxi, outlines how the heating and hot water industry can deliver practical support to schools on the path to the 2030 net zero target.
In 2025, the government made a decision to commit no further investment to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme beyond existing Phase 3 and 4 projects. Launched in 2020, over £3.8 billion had been awarded to schools, colleges and other public sector organisations to replace inefficient heating systems and reduce energy bills. Despite the UK’s vision to become the world-leading education sector in sustainability and climate change by 2030, full details of targeted replacement funding for heat decarbonisation are yet to be announced almost 12 months on. The concern is that this leaves school estate managers questioning the steps they can take now on their net zero journey.
As we await clarity regarding funding support, there are several actions that can help accelerate heat decarbonisation and boost heating efficiency in the meantime.
Understanding usage
A huge grant isn’t always needed to make a significant difference. A viable starting point is to understand how and where energy is being used in buildings and how well the heating systems are working. This information will make it much easier to identify quick wins for immediate energy savings and to set longer- term decarbonisation plans.
Controls can have a major impact on comfort and efficiency, yet they are rarely serviced or optimised, which often leads to systems running 24/7 at maximum capacity. A
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www.education-today.co.uk June 2026 Forward planning
Conducting regular surveys to understand the condition of the plant and heating system serving the building could uncover opportunities for system optimisation and support forward planning. It will also help to avoid the rushed, like-for-like replacements that often inherit the inefficiencies of their predecessors.
This, in turn, will make it much easier to plot actionable pathways to net zero and the transition from fossil fuels towards an all- electric heating and hot water system. This would typically involve low-carbon heat pumps complemented by renewable technologies like solar PV, solar thermal and batteries. Alongside space heating, domestic hot water (DHW) presents a real decarbonisation opportunity. Point-of-use (POU) electric water heaters can play a valuable role by generating
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