Greenhouse heating problems are rarely just heating problems

Heating issues are usually treated as plant problems — the boiler, the pipework, the valves, the pumps, the emitters. Sometimes that's exactly right. But in a complex glasshouse, temperature instability is just as often caused by the interaction between heating distribution, ventilation strategy, screen position, sensor placement and control logic. Replace the boiler and the instability can remain, because the boiler was never the cause.

We approach a heating issue by reviewing the facility as one environment rather than treating heating as a standalone package. Where heating works are genuinely needed, we can deliver them — refurbishment, alterations, coordinated installation — but the point isn't to avoid heating works. It's to make sure the works address the actual cause of the problem, not just the part that's easiest to point at.

What a heating review needs to consider

A heating system can be technically working while the facility still fails to hold the environment expected of it. Heat may be produced but distributed unevenly. Controls may respond correctly to sensors that no longer represent the crop or the research conditions. Ventilation and screens may be correcting against the heating in ways that create drift rather than stability.

Before replacing plant, or committing to a heating upgrade, it's usually worth understanding whether the issue sits in the plant itself, in the distribution, in the controls strategy, or in the way heating interacts with the other systems around it.

Where BM Greenhouses can help

  • Recurring heating faults where the root cause remains unclear
  • Temperature inconsistency across bays or compartments
  • Heating strategy review before refurbishment or upgrade works

  • The interaction between heating, screens, ventilation and controls
  • Review of existing heating infrastructure before replacement is specified
  • Coordinated upgrade planning where heating changes affect wider facility behaviour

Heating upgrades and renewable options

Air source heat pumps, biomass and other heating technologies all have a place in glasshouse facilities — but the right option depends on the facility, the operating pattern, the heat demand, the control strategy and the existing infrastructure.

We don't treat renewable heating as a generic product decision. The starting point is whether the proposed route will work with the facility as it actually operates, whether the wider systems can support the intended environmental outcome, and whether the installation can be integrated without creating new instability. Where the right route is clear, we can deliver it directly or coordinate the relevant specialists so that heating, controls and ventilation are treated together.