St Leonard’s Green Scheme
The oil-fired boiler that heats St Leonard’s is failing fast, and we need your help to replace it.
We need to replace it so that we can continue to offer a warm welcome to everyone – for weddings, baptisms, and funerals. For Christmas, Easter, Plough Sunday, and Harvest. For every Sunday service, between services, and every day of the week. For now, and for years to come.
But we don’t want to just get another fossil fuel system. In the face of climate chaos driven by carbon emissions, replacing a failing boiler with something greener is the perfect opportunity to show our love for the whole beautiful world that we believe was created by God for us to enjoy, cherish, and care for. Fortuitously, churches tend to be built facing East, with nice big South-facing roofs that are just perfect for solar panels…
The Plan
Having consulted with various experts (heating engineers, solar panel installers, church heating specialists, electricity suppliers etc.), we have arrived at a system that we think is ideal for St Leonard’s. It is large enough to keep us warm, but not excessive so that it becomes wasteful of materials or money.
Panels
A 10 panel, 4kW array on the south roof of the nave (the main body of the church)
Batteries
A pair of 13.5kWh batteries that will charge up during the week, between services
Heaters
Under each pew, these discreet heaters will gently but effectively heat people from below
To find out more detail, please see our FAQ page.
The Appeal
The quotes we have received put the expected cost of the whole project to be £50,000. A lot of money, yes, but we have been given encouragement that approximately half of that can be gained as grants from funding bodies. As for the rest, well, we have a wide range of activities and community events planned on top of what we hope will be the mainstay of our fundraising efforts – the Sponsor a Pew scheme.
The pews in St Leonard’s fall into two rough categories, longer pews and shorter pews. Sharing out the proportional costs of the batteries and the panels, as well as the heaters themselves, we have calculated that the longer pews will cost £1500 to equip, and the shorter pews will cost £500.
Could you (or your family or friends jointly) sponsor a pew? Perhaps you got married at St Leonard’s, or your children did. Perhaps you were christened there? Or maybe you come back each year for Harvest or Christmas or Easter? Sponsoring a pew would ensure that St Leonard’s is in a fit state to welcome you and everyone else back, year after year, to celebrate together – in the warm!
To donate, please visit our donation page.