Oil combination boiler updates Kent Oast House

Our customer had very recently moved to a picturesque Oast House near Headcorn, Kent. Oast Houses are typically found in Kent and although no longer used for their original purpose, retain the round towers and pitched roofs so beloved by picture postcards. Our customer wanted to maximise their internal space, which is always at a premium in a round house and this meant the larder had to be vacated of a poorly maintained Firebird heat only oil boiler; and the bright yellow oil fired AGA also had to go. Sadly, oil fired AGAs are no longer desirable, being temperamental, old, […]
Archie Kidd boiler replaced (*) with another oil boiler pioneer

Our customer lives in Kent in a 1890s set of railway construction workers cottages. When the property was refurbished in 2004, he specified an Archie Kidd (Thermal) VHE Model 1 oil boiler. This was before the UK Government had latched onto condensing boilers being the future. In fact Archie Kidd had designed his Model 2 prototype in 1959 as part of his strive for energy to be conserved and not wasted needlessly. The Kidd Model 1 should last in excess of 30 years, so it was a shame to remove this now discontinued British leader in the history of heating […]
Navien Oil Boiler Cascade replaces Biomass plant

For this case study, we are on a 660 acre farm on the Surrey/Kent borders, comprising a number of industrial units, home and other uses, where once 6000 pigs used to roam. The owners of the farm complex were influential with some of the first biomass developments, and while advising other users over 20 years ago, they fitted a plant in their farm industrial area. Their Farm2000 biomass plant used timber and other waste, and was connected to a large underground steel pipework distribution system. Heat on the lucky units and houses connected to the system was unmetered, and it […]
Game changing oil boiler installation in Leatherhead, Surrey, 10 year warranty.

Oil boilers are considered to be rather outdated now, what with the UK Government pledging* to have us all driving around in electric cars and heating our homes with hydrogen. While not saying where the electricity, or the hydrogen, will be coming from, of course. *Sensibly, these promises are being made with a timescale of at least 15 years away, meaning they are worthless. Amidst these pontifications, a boiler manufacturer has quietly beavered away and come up with a very low Nox (Nitrous Oxide) oil boiler; in fact, it is billed as the least polluting oil boiler you can install […]
Underwater listed building, novel oil flue system

Here we have an unusual case study. It is a listed building in a rural part of Kent, UK, on top of a hilly area. It has a large cellar covering most of the floor area of the house. In very heavy rainfall in 2019, the road (some considerable distance from the house) became flooded, and due to some collapsed drainage on the highway, a very large amount of water gathered in a pond. At some point during the night, the water found its way into a cellar light, smashed the window, and quickly filled the entire cellar, all the […]
Barn conversion near Tonbridge, Kent

Here we find ourselves down a rural unmarked lane in Kent, the site of a large barn conversion. It comprises a two storey hallway, and many original features. Much of the house is already underfloor heated, using an L&K system with around 14 separately controlled zones. What makes this system unusual is the various heat sources used to create the heating and hot water. There’s two fuel burning stoves, some solar thermal on the rooftop, and a Rayburn solid fuel stove. This was all installed by the present owners, who were almost singlehandedly responsible for the design and execution around […]
Improving water supply and Acorn heating pipework issues

Our customer lives in a remote rural location near Warlingham, in Surrey, UK. They asked us to provide a proposal to update their old Grant boiler. Interestingly, it had rotted through a few years previously, and their heating technician had located a comparatively healthy heat secondhand heat exchanger in Cornwall, which he had successfully fitted. The ladder type steel radiators suffered from perpetual air and some had stopped working, others had lost the upper sections and were partially cold, something which venting could not cure. I was intrigued because although the system was fitted with a header tank, there was […]
- Honeywell EvoHome ,
- Johnson & Starley warm air ,
- Large domestic heating ,
- MultiCalor warm air ,
- Oil boiler installations ,
- Pressurised hot water system installations ,
- Standard (heat only) boiler installations ,
- Warm air heating ,
- Water boosting (accumulators) ,
- Water Boosting installations ,
- Worcester Bosch boilers
A new Worcester Danesmoor, MultiCalor Warm Air, Radiators, Water pressure boosting…..

Today we are in a rural property in the Edenbridge/Tonbridge area of Kent. Our customer has recently moved back to the UK from working abroad. He has bought a detached house in the middle of the Kent countryside. The subject of an extensive makeover in the last 20 years, this property had a Lennox oil fired warm air unit in the cellar, a Worcester standard efficiency boiler in the external cupboard, and a conventional hot water system. The warm air system was around 20 years old, and covered the two reception rooms , kitchen and hall areas. It was very […]
Anthracite boiler replaced Worcester Oil Boiler and Evohome

For today’s update we are in a remote part of Kent, not far from the famous Biggin Hill aerodrome. Our customer has lived for many years in this rural idyll, in a semi detached cottage. Up until now, he has used a Trianco boiler running on solid fuel, in this case anthracite. The solid fuel boiler, located in the kitchen, is a relatively modern unit that greenies would now describe excitedly as a Biomass boiler. It is relatively modern in so far as it has a fan assisted combustion system and the collection of ash is partially automated. Our customer […]
Oil boiler replacement in Surrey, new flue liner

We often come across an older boiler within a house where the flue runs through an existing chimney. Many customers have been told that a modern condensing boiler can’t be fitted in such a location – but that is usually not the case. Somewhere near Gatwick (customer confidentiality means we don’t ever say where a domestic residence is located). What their installer means by saying it can’t be done is that they either; have no experience, don’t know how it could be done, or simply can’t be bothered. Using an existing chimney does, in almost all cases, require the inside […]