Please help us turn up the heat at Plodda Lodge!

The recent winter, one of the coldest on record in Scotland, has highlighted the urgent need to install a proper heating system at Plodda Lodge. Please make a donation now, to help us provide a warm welcome to the volunteers who stay there during their Conservation Holidays to help restore the Caledonian Forest.

Dear Supporter,

As I write this, spring is in full flourish, after what has been one of the coldest winters on record in the Highlands. I, and all of us at Trees for Life, are grateful for the new life of another spring, in our nursery at Plodda Lodge and on the trees our volunteers are planting at Dundreggan and other sites just now. I’m also very grateful for the generous response we received to our last appeal in November, for the Heart of the Plantation project at Dundreggan. We’ve received over £11,000 to date, which will enable the project to go ahead this year - my thanks to everyone who donated to that. However, the cold winter has highlighted another urgent need that we were already aware of - for a new heating system at Plodda Lodge, so I’m writing today to ask for your support in raising £15,000 for this.

When we purchased Plodda in 1996, we spent a lot of time and effort in upgrading the building to make it suitable for both our nursery and field base staff to live in, and as accommodation for our volunteer groups working at nearby sites such as Glen Affric and Corrimony. While this made a significant improvement to the Lodge, the heating system, which consisted of a Rayburn stove and back boiler for hot water in the common room and a wood burning stove in the bunkroom, was barely up to the task asked of it. Subsequently, we’ve had to remove the wood burning stove from the common room (to comply with health and safety regulations) and have been making do instead with an electrically-powered oil filled radiator, which is quite inadequate, and temporary at best. The cold winter has reinforced our intention to invest in a better heating system for Plodda - now is the time to turn up the heat there to a more comfortable level!

Please help us provide a warm welcome to the volunteers who stay at Plodda!

Volunteers are vital to the success of Trees for Life, and the groups work hard to implement our vision of a restored Caledonian Forest in the Highlands. After a strenuous day’s work (in all weather!) it’s essential they can get warm and dry again. With up to 15 groups each staying at Plodda for a week every year, we need to install a more effective heating system to properly provide for them. Thanks to government grants to promote renewable energy, we can get 50% funding for a new log-fired boiler system that will do the job well. We need to raise £15,000 to match the grant funding, so I’m asking you to make a donation today, to help us reach this target.

Here’s how we plan, with your help, to turn up the heat at Plodda Lodge:

• We plan to install a new Froling S3 log-fired batch boiler that will be situated in a purpose- built small boiler house, in close proximity to the Lodge itself. Providing 28 kilowatts of heat and operating at up to 92% thermal efficiency, the boiler is fired with logs (up to 50 cm. long) in the morning. These burn during the day and heat up the 2,200 litre accumulator tanks, providing a large volume of rapidly available hot water for central heating and hot water use in the evening, when our volunteer groups return from their day’s work.


• The boiler will cost approximately £20,000, while the boiler house will be £5,000, and the new radiators and pipework in the Lodge will be another £5,000, making £30,000 in total. Under the Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) we will be able to claim a grant of 50% towards this, leaving us with the balance of £15,000 to find. Once installed, the system will reduce our ongoing heating costs, and will attract some ongoing funding if the government’s proposed Renewable Heat Incentive scheme is approved.


• Wood is a renewable resource, and burning logs avoids the use of both electricity for heating (which is a very inefficient energy usage) and fossil fuels (thereby reducing the contribution we make towards global warming). Wood to supply the boiler is abundant and locally-sourced, and will come from the nearby plantations of non-native trees, which are gradually being removed, as the area is restored to natural forest.

Your support now will help keep Plodda warm in the years and decades ahead!

With the current grants for renewable energy systems, this is the perfect opportunity to upgrade the heating system at Plodda to one that is effective, energy-efficient and more ecologically friendly. We can only do this though with the backing of our supporters, to provide the match funding we need. Please make a donation now – it takes just a few moments, and the stroke of a pen, but will have very real benefits for Plodda, and our volunteers, for years to come!

To make a donation online to this appeal, please follow the link below, and my sincere thanks for any support that you can provide.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Watson Featherstone
Executive Director

PS. Please act now, in the heat of the moment, and help us with this vital project – your contribution can make all the difference! Thank you!