The Backstory
So, another month, another explore. Seriously, I haven't had this much success in a while *knocks on wood*. Today's subject is a small heating plant in the Czech Republic located in an active area. I came across it at some point in 2020 when I was randomly skimming Google Maps and looking for stuff to explore. It looked like it might be abandoned, judging by the mostly static pile of coal around the conveyor, so I did a little bit of digging - it's surprising how much stuff gets released publicly when it comes to environmental protection and permissions to burn stuff - and after two or three hours I've confirmed that it's abandoned. Fun fact: I've actually been in the same area a year before, in 2019, to explore a different abandoned building, but I didn't know the heating plant was even there back then. So I've been itching to make a visit but didn't get to it. It's really far away from where I live and not the direction I usually travel in. And on one opportunity when I was close by, I burnt my hand (not too badly) and decided I wasn't really fit for an explore. The situation changed this year when we got a confirmation that the location was doable - one of our friends checked it out along with another group, and he would be our tour guide. He was there late in the afternoon and didn't have much sunlight, so he wanted to shoot some more photos as well. And now that we knew we had a chance, the distance wasn't that much of an issue.
The History
Now that the backstory is out of the way, a little bit of information about the location. There isn't much to say. It's part of a large industrial site that has existed since the 19th century. It has changed owners here and there, more often in recent times. I don't know when exactly the heating plant was built, but it was built in two phases - two old and two new boilers. This is confirmed in the regulatory documents, which permit only boilers K3 and K4 to be operated, and mention K1 and K2 being "old" and "decommissioned." K3 and K4 are identical, each producing around 70 tons of steam per hour. There is one backpressure turbine with a 4MW output - a First Brno Machineworks turbine coupled with a Skoda generator. I couldn't find any information about the heating plant except the official documents. It definitely went through an expansion - K1 and K2 are placed around one meter lower than K3 and K4, separated by a solid brick wall, creating two separate areas connected only on the ground floor. The turbine hall spans both parts, but there is only one turbine, which is in the K1 and K2 part of the structure, which would suggest it was there before the expansion and was originally powered by K1 and K2 boilers. It served as pressure reduction for the steam. The official documents also mention the existence of another "older" pressure reduction but do not mention it being a turbine. All in all, given what I've seen elsewhere, the turbine is from the 30s or 40s. The style of generator is typical for Skoda from that era, and I've seen a few such Skoda-First Brno Machineworks combinations from the 30s and 40s. Certainly older than 1965, when First Brno Machineworks became part of Skoda. The K1 and K2 boilers also seem like they could be from the late 30s or early 40s - bricks in a steel framing. The new boilers look to me like 60s stuff, being steel-plated. An interesting fact is that all four boilers were force-ventilated. There are fans on top of the boilers and no smokestack in sight. This caused the plant to exceed regulatory limits on noise pollution. We also looked at the continuous weighing panel, which was next to the conveyor on top of the coal bunkers, and it showed around 25 tons for K1 and K2, which were supposed to be permanently offline. K3 and K4 had around 2.5 million tons, so they were indeed running. It was abandoned half a decade ago and replaced by a smaller heating plant.
The Explore
With that info dump behind us, it's time for the explore. Me and my usual exploring duo met up with our friend who visited the place a few weeks before. We went around 8 AM on a weekend because we were too lazy to wake up early, and it didn't seem to require the "3 AM Sunday sneak" like some locations. We knew the area was guarded and that the security walked around the plant, as evidenced by the obvious paths in the grass. Next to our entry point into the building, a random bright green lighter appeared as well. And the buildings around the plant were active. We heard some workers shouting but did not see any. It helped that the heating plant was at the edge of the area, so just one hop over a fence, a short walk, and a little bit of sneaking around was enough to get us inside. We started with the turbine hall, followed by the K1 and K2 boilers, the K3 and K4 boilers, and the offices. There were two control rooms - one in the turbine hall, an ugly one, and one in the K3/K4 part of the structure, which was nice but so bloody dark I have just one shitty photo. The turbine hall was nice to photograph as it had a large window, and so were the K1/K2 boilers with their own set of windows, but K3/K4 was such a pain with no light sources and so many small holes that the photos were completely unusable.
Overall, it was a solid explore. 10/10, would recommend. Enjoy the photos.
The Photos
First stop, turbine hall.
The ugly control room in the turbine hall.
The K1/K2 part of the boilerhouse.
K3/K4 boilers
The nice control room with zero light (shot at f2.8, way too many seconds of exposure, lit up with mobile phone)
The conveyor above the coal bunkers
The one nice-looking office
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!
So, another month, another explore. Seriously, I haven't had this much success in a while *knocks on wood*. Today's subject is a small heating plant in the Czech Republic located in an active area. I came across it at some point in 2020 when I was randomly skimming Google Maps and looking for stuff to explore. It looked like it might be abandoned, judging by the mostly static pile of coal around the conveyor, so I did a little bit of digging - it's surprising how much stuff gets released publicly when it comes to environmental protection and permissions to burn stuff - and after two or three hours I've confirmed that it's abandoned. Fun fact: I've actually been in the same area a year before, in 2019, to explore a different abandoned building, but I didn't know the heating plant was even there back then. So I've been itching to make a visit but didn't get to it. It's really far away from where I live and not the direction I usually travel in. And on one opportunity when I was close by, I burnt my hand (not too badly) and decided I wasn't really fit for an explore. The situation changed this year when we got a confirmation that the location was doable - one of our friends checked it out along with another group, and he would be our tour guide. He was there late in the afternoon and didn't have much sunlight, so he wanted to shoot some more photos as well. And now that we knew we had a chance, the distance wasn't that much of an issue.
The History
Now that the backstory is out of the way, a little bit of information about the location. There isn't much to say. It's part of a large industrial site that has existed since the 19th century. It has changed owners here and there, more often in recent times. I don't know when exactly the heating plant was built, but it was built in two phases - two old and two new boilers. This is confirmed in the regulatory documents, which permit only boilers K3 and K4 to be operated, and mention K1 and K2 being "old" and "decommissioned." K3 and K4 are identical, each producing around 70 tons of steam per hour. There is one backpressure turbine with a 4MW output - a First Brno Machineworks turbine coupled with a Skoda generator. I couldn't find any information about the heating plant except the official documents. It definitely went through an expansion - K1 and K2 are placed around one meter lower than K3 and K4, separated by a solid brick wall, creating two separate areas connected only on the ground floor. The turbine hall spans both parts, but there is only one turbine, which is in the K1 and K2 part of the structure, which would suggest it was there before the expansion and was originally powered by K1 and K2 boilers. It served as pressure reduction for the steam. The official documents also mention the existence of another "older" pressure reduction but do not mention it being a turbine. All in all, given what I've seen elsewhere, the turbine is from the 30s or 40s. The style of generator is typical for Skoda from that era, and I've seen a few such Skoda-First Brno Machineworks combinations from the 30s and 40s. Certainly older than 1965, when First Brno Machineworks became part of Skoda. The K1 and K2 boilers also seem like they could be from the late 30s or early 40s - bricks in a steel framing. The new boilers look to me like 60s stuff, being steel-plated. An interesting fact is that all four boilers were force-ventilated. There are fans on top of the boilers and no smokestack in sight. This caused the plant to exceed regulatory limits on noise pollution. We also looked at the continuous weighing panel, which was next to the conveyor on top of the coal bunkers, and it showed around 25 tons for K1 and K2, which were supposed to be permanently offline. K3 and K4 had around 2.5 million tons, so they were indeed running. It was abandoned half a decade ago and replaced by a smaller heating plant.
The Explore
With that info dump behind us, it's time for the explore. Me and my usual exploring duo met up with our friend who visited the place a few weeks before. We went around 8 AM on a weekend because we were too lazy to wake up early, and it didn't seem to require the "3 AM Sunday sneak" like some locations. We knew the area was guarded and that the security walked around the plant, as evidenced by the obvious paths in the grass. Next to our entry point into the building, a random bright green lighter appeared as well. And the buildings around the plant were active. We heard some workers shouting but did not see any. It helped that the heating plant was at the edge of the area, so just one hop over a fence, a short walk, and a little bit of sneaking around was enough to get us inside. We started with the turbine hall, followed by the K1 and K2 boilers, the K3 and K4 boilers, and the offices. There were two control rooms - one in the turbine hall, an ugly one, and one in the K3/K4 part of the structure, which was nice but so bloody dark I have just one shitty photo. The turbine hall was nice to photograph as it had a large window, and so were the K1/K2 boilers with their own set of windows, but K3/K4 was such a pain with no light sources and so many small holes that the photos were completely unusable.
Overall, it was a solid explore. 10/10, would recommend. Enjoy the photos.
The Photos
First stop, turbine hall.
The ugly control room in the turbine hall.
The K1/K2 part of the boilerhouse.
K3/K4 boilers
The nice control room with zero light (shot at f2.8, way too many seconds of exposure, lit up with mobile phone)
The conveyor above the coal bunkers
The one nice-looking office
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!
