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Industry | Heating |
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Founded | September 1962 |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | United Kingdom and Ireland |
Key people | Cecil Duckworth (founder) |
Products | Boilers, solar panels, heat pumps |
Number of employees | 2,000+ |
Parent | Robert Bosch GmbH |
Website | www |
Worcester Bosch (commonly referred to as Worcester) is a United Kingdom based heating and hot water products manufacturer. [1]
The company was founded in 1962 by Cecil Duckworth as Worcester Engineering Co Ltd in Worcester, England. After changing its name to Worcester Heat Systems Ltd, in 1992 the company was acquired by Robert Bosch GmbH, adopting the new name of Worcester Bosch.
Headquartered in Warndon, a suburb of the city of Worcester, the company employs more than 2,000 people across the headquarters and manufacturing plants in Worcester and Clay Cross, Derbyshire, including a network of over 300 service engineers and over 80 technically trained field sales managers. [2]
The company was founded by Cecil Duckworth in 1962 as Worcester Engineering Co Ltd, based at the Old Vinegar works in Worcester. Worcester's early success is attributed to the pioneering of combination boilers in the UK, [3] further successful performance in the UK heating market led to the expansion and relocation of the factory to its current headquarters in Warndon in 1990. [4]
Continued growth was followed by the acquisition by Robert Bosch GmbH in 1992, with the company changing its name to 'Worcester, Bosch Group'. As part of Bosch's heating technology subsidiary, Worcester is a brand of Bosch Thermotechnology Ltd, the collective name that refers to Worcester, Bosch Group and Buderus (acquired by Bosch in 2003). [5]
Whilst Worcester's origins lie in oil and gas boilers, recent years have seen the company champion renewable technologies such as solar water heating, ground source and air source heat pumps. The company runs schemes such as the Environment 2020 awards to reward and promote energy efficiency and reinforce their commitment to being an "environmentally responsible manufacturer". [6]
Worcester has been awarded the royal warrant by the Queen for supplying hot water products to the royal family. [7]
Worcester Bosch Group were a founding sponsor of the Upton Blues Festival, but in 2009 reluctantly pulled out. [8]
The company has strong connections to the Worcester Warriors Rugby club through Chairman and founder Cecil Duckworth CBE, and that was renewed in 2010 when Worcester, Bosch Group was named as the Warriors new shirt sponsor up to the 2012-13 season. [9]
Worcester's product portfolio covers seven technologies:
Worcester's gas, oil and LPG ranges consist of regular boilers, combination boilers and system boilers; these are wall-hung, floor-standing or externally sited.
Worcester's solar water heating range was released in 2005, with the ground source heat pump range being released in 2007 and the air source heat pump range being released in 2008. [10]
Worcester operates a loyalty scheme known as the Worcester Accredited Installer scheme. Worcester Accredited Installers "specialise in Worcester products and can offer extended warranties" and benefit from features such as the online 'Find an Installer' search. [11] Worcester Accredited Installers are experienced in fitting Worcester products but are not employed by Worcester. [12] Worcester specifies that all members of the Worcester Accredited Installer scheme are Gas Safe Registered.
It has been announced in the local and national press that the company has applied for planning permission to relocate its Warndon headquarters to a new site near junction 6 of the M5. [13] This land is part of the Green Belt.
An interview with Paul Middlebrough, leader of the Wychavon District Council in the Worcester News provided some support for the proposed move; "Strategically, Wychavon recognises the absolute necessity to retain Bosch and formulate its expansion in the Worcester area. In this difficult and probably deteriorating time, the fact that Bosch are going to expand is good for everybody. The proposal will provide opportunities for more employees to move into a prime location, which places us in a good position to promote jobs for local people as the economy recovers." [14]
In May 2018, a serious data breach inadvertently revealed the home addresses of “tens of thousands” of Worcester customers. [15]
A heat pump is a device that consumes energy to transfer heat from a cold heat sink to a hot heat sink. Specifically, the heat pump transfers thermal energy using a refrigeration cycle, cooling the cool space and warming the warm space. In cold weather, a heat pump can move heat from the cool outdoors to warm a house ; the pump may also be designed to move heat from the house to the warmer outdoors in warm weather. As they transfer heat rather than generating heat, they are more energy-efficient than other ways of heating or cooling a home.
Water heating is a heat transfer process that uses an energy source to heat water above its initial temperature. Typical domestic uses of hot water include cooking, cleaning, bathing, and space heating. In industry, hot water and water heated to steam have many uses.
Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time.
A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces.
District heating is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating and water heating. The heat is often obtained from a cogeneration plant burning fossil fuels or biomass, but heat-only boiler stations, geothermal heating, heat pumps and central solar heating are also used, as well as heat waste from factories and nuclear power electricity generation. District heating plants can provide higher efficiencies and better pollution control than localized boilers. According to some research, district heating with combined heat and power (CHPDH) is the cheapest method of cutting carbon emissions, and has one of the lowest carbon footprints of all fossil generation plants.
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Renewable heat is an application of renewable energy referring to the generation of heat from renewable sources; for example, feeding radiators with water warmed by focused solar radiation rather than by a fossil fuel boiler. Renewable heat technologies include renewable biofuels, solar heating, geothermal heating, heat pumps and heat exchangers. Insulation is almost always an important factor in how renewable heating is implemented.
An air source heat pump (ASHP) is a heat pump that can absorb heat from air outside a building and release it inside; it uses the same vapor-compression refrigeration process and much the same equipment as an air conditioner, but in the opposite direction. ASHPs are the most common type of heat pump and, usually being smaller, tend to be used to heat individual houses or flats rather than blocks, districts or industrial processes.
A ground source heat pump is a heating/cooling system for buildings that use a type of heat pump to transfer heat to or from the ground, taking advantage of the relative constancy of temperatures of the earth through the seasons. Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) – or geothermal heat pumps (GHP), as they are commonly termed in North America – are among the most energy-efficient technologies for providing HVAC and water heating, using far less energy than can be achieved by burning a fuel in a boiler/furnace or by use of resistive electric heaters.
Baxi is a manufacturer and distributor of domestic and commercial water and space heating systems, based in Warwick, England. It is a subsidiary of European group BDR Thermea.
De Dietrich Remeha is one of Europe's biggest manufacturers and distributors of domestic and commercial water and space heating systems. Headquartered in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, it was founded in July 2004 after a merger between the Dutch firm Remeha, and the French firm De Dietrich Thermique. In July 2009, the heavily laden with debt British Baxi group agreed to merge with De Dietrich Remeha, creating the BDR Thermea Group.
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Zero-carbon housing is housing that does not emit greenhouse gasses (GHGs) into the atmosphere, either directly, or indirectly due to consumption electricity produced using fossil fuels. Most commonly zero-carbon housing is taken to mean zero emissions of carbon dioxide, which is the main climate pollutant from homes, although fugitive methane may also be emitted from natural gas pipes and appliances.
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Rheem Manufacturing Company is an American privately held manufacturer that produces residential and commercial water heaters and boilers, as well as heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. The company also produces and sells products under the Ruud brand name. It is an independent subsidiary of Paloma Industries. What became Rheem started in 1925 as a supplier of packaging to the petroleum industry, and is currently headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. The company is one of the largest manufacturers of both water heating and HVAC equipment in the United States, and also produces and markets products in Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, China, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Iraq, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, Perú, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UAE, and Ukraine.
Cecil Duckworth CBE was an English businessman and the founder of Worcester Bosch and executive chairman of Rugby Union team Worcester Warriors. He also founded the Worcestershire Duckworth Trust, a Worcestershire charity that helps to relieve poverty and promote environmental conservation.
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