Warm & Toasty: Our Indoor Heated Areas Are Now Here!

We may have well and truly closed the doors on the festive period but the gates to our park are now wide open even if summer isn't on its way just yet... These chilly temperatures don’t need to put you off visiting Noah’s Ark Zoo farm though; we are now delighted to inform you that we have installed new “hot spots” covering the major areas of the park, making visits in these colder months much more enjoyable for you. And where are these hot spots, you ask? Well, to start 2015 off we have installed a special new heating system warming ALL our indoor play and eating areas – this covers 18,000 square-metres and makes us one of the largest heated play centres now in the region! 

 If we add in the elephant house, café and shop this pushes the total heated areas to 25,000 square-meters. Now that’s a lot of warmth for one zoo! The big Giraffe House is also heated, so you can head out into the main park and see our big zoo animals and still keep toasty! Take it our impressive Elephant Eden barn on your walk and don’t miss the Reptile House. Staying true to our green roots, the new project to heat our play barns uses an environmentally-friendly Lindner & Sommereaur L250 biomass boiler (the output is 195kW of heat), from a company called Rainbow Heat and Power. We now have seven large fan heaters circulating warm air through our four main barns: the popular Ark Arena (where our fantastic Animal Show is presented), Rainbow Slide room (full of play slides and picnic tables for lunch), Ark iVentures (the largest play barn, complete with aerial walkways, ball pits, trampolines and mini tractors) and the Jungle Den Soft Play barn (a special room dedicated to soft play for under 5s and their parents, and where we hold our Jungle Tots coffee mornings). This is the warmest room on site, perfect for little ones to keep snug. 

Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm only employs the best installers, and we are proud to say we used experts from MJS Alternative Heating Solutions and C2 Electrics to fit our heating system. Both companies committed to providing excellent value and service, always using green energy solutions where possible. C2 Electrics have been responsible for overseeing all of our green energy initiatives at the zoo, including the large wind turbine and solar PV panels on our Elephant Barn and Lemurs House, biomass heating at our Elephant Eden and now biomass heating for all of our play barns. Our accolades speak for themselves: we won ‘Gold’ in the national Green Tourism Business Scheme last year for our impressive commitment to sustainable operation – we are one of only three zoos in the UK to hold the badge, and the only one in the South West. We also hold the national Quality Badge from the ‘Learning Outside the Classroom’ (LOTC) in recognition of our professional education program for schools. We have seen a hugely positive response to our awards and changes (including the new heating system) within the zoo; as a result, we now have a record number of new Members this season. Membership offers extraordinary value if you are planning on visiting several times a season, giving you notable savings and extra benefits. Noah’s Ark is an all-season destination, so come and take advantage of our new cosy atmosphere this winter.