'The time isn't right': Why undersoil heating is not part of Portsmouth's £1.5m Fratton Park project
Installing undersoil heating at Fratton Park would cost an additional £750,000
Pompey are convinced ‘the time isn’t right’ to introduce undersoil heating to Fratton Park.
And they will instead rely on the MacLeod Pitch Cover to protect their playing surface for the foreseeable future.
However, the Blues have decided against splashing out an additional £750,000 to also install undersoil heating. Although its presence is compulsory in the Premier League, there is no such stipulation in the Championship.
And with January’s postponement against Ipswich representing the first Fratton Park match to suffer from a frozen pitch cancellation since the scheduled visit of Hull in February 2012, Pompey will argue undersoil heating isn’t presently required.
‘It just felt it wasn’t the right time to go that way’
Steve Cripps, PMC Construction’s managing director who is overseeing the project, told The News: ‘Putting in undersoil heating will probably add £750,000 - and then you’ve got the mechanical plant.
‘Many clubs have undersoil heating, but the technology at the moment is still mainly gas. If you look at the directives and the environmental aspects, you should be moving to electric.
‘A lot of clubs with undersoil heating bring in a temporary mechanical plant, which is either a boiler or air source heat pump. Other clubs have undersoil heating and their mechanical plant has failed because they don’t use it enough.
‘It just felt it wasn’t the right time to go that way - and there were options of the MacLeod systems, which you can opt to use on a daily basis.
‘A lot of the work we’ve done now is not abortive should we want undersoil heating further down the line. You could shave the top layer, which is the carpet, and probably the first 200-300mm to put it in.
‘But it still adds a huge cost for running and, at the moment with electric prices and the world where it is, it’s just not the right thing.
‘We need to be a bit more advanced and I dare say technology will be changing in the next few years. So, by the time we look at it again, things will be in a more stable place.’
The MacLeod Pitch Cover system
Pompey have employed the MacLeod Pitch Cover on occasions this season to protect the Fratton Park playing surface.
Available for clubs to hire, next season will see the technology rolled out as a permanent solution on a match-by-match basis.
Cripps added: ‘Last year the MacCloud cover system was at most grounds in the Championship and the FA Cup. So you can either operate undersoil heating or a MacLeod cover which goes over the pitch.
‘We have opted for a MacLeod cover. We have sufficient gas to be able to pipe in, it’s a glorified tent which goes over the pitch and we have ground anchors on the ground, so it’s anchored to the point.
‘We connect it to a gas supply and it blows hot, warm air through that.’
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