End of terrace in Sevenoaks with water flow issues
We were called to an interesting refurbishment in Ide Hill, near Sevenoaks, Kent. The house was in a very rural location at the end of a terrace of four victorian cottages. We couldn’t take any decent photos of the house at the time of the job because it was covered in scaffolding! The property was being updated and renovated; as space was tight the customer wanted to remove water tanks and the hot water cylinder from the house and at the same time replace the old oil boiler in a shed on the other side of the entrance pathway. […]
No place like home, EvoHome
This is a post closer to home. In fact it is my home! Our house in Edenbridge, Kent is heated by an Archie Kidd (Thermal) Ltd oil fired boiler, and has around 26 radiators. It was built in 1894 and heating it is an expensive business, because our insulation is hard to improve. In 2005 we installed Honeywell Hometronic. This is a system that uses remote control radiator valves to divide the house into 16 areas of controlled heating. This enabled us to reduce the heating level in rooms we weren’t using in the day, but warm them in the […]
New model Worcester-Bosch Danesmoor external
In our previous post we described the unfortunate experience of my brother in law, in Nantwich, where he had a Worcester-Bosch Danesmoor installed by a registered installer, and got a particularly shoddy job. This post is hopefully a better example, because it was one of our installations! Our customer is in the Gatwick area (south east England) and lives in a detached chalet bungalow. He had an older Worcester 14/19 internal oil boiler, which had developed a problem which rendered it beyond economic repair. It also necessitated removal of a granite worktop whenever anything significant required attention, so our […]
Large old listed country house – 155Kw boiler system renewal
We’ve just replaced the boiler plant in a very large country residence in Sussex (July 2013). The old oil fired Worcester Bosch system heated the house, which was mainly comprised of 60 yr old radiators and large bore steel pipe, as an entire single entity without any zone control. The oil bill (no mains gas here) was £12K per annum. Our customer looked at a number of options, but liked our approach best. Our unique proposal was to improve the efficiency of the boiler room by using weather compensation and load sharing – reduce consumption of oil and increase comfort, […]
Oil fired 1969 warm air heater replacement in Chatham, Kent
We were asked to look at a very cold house on the outskirts of Chatham by an older gentleman, whose heating had failed. The warm air system dated back to the mid 1960s, when the house was built. Spares being no longer available, the warm air unit had given it’s last and the house was freezing. The hot water system was similarly antiquated, using a vapourising pot oil burner in the utility room to heat a conventional hot water cylinder upstairs via an indirect water coil. There aren’t many options when it comes to domestic oil fired warm air. Lennox […]
Outside boiler in Kent
Hello and welcome to our latest post. This job, undertaken during the Olympics, was on a listed property in Four Elms, Kent. It is an oil boiler (we seem to be doing lots of these at the moment), a Perrymatics Jetstreme MkII, and the owners of the property fancied updating it with a new high efficiency model, and relocating it outside the property. As usual, we were pleased to oblige! The Jetstreme was removed from the rear office area creating significantly more room, and also making the house quieter. The old boiler was an ‘open flue’ type so there […]
Replace oil AGA with new Heritage cooker
In my mind the AGA is a great cooker. It works on the principle of a large heavy mass full of heat, if you stick something cooler and smaller inside (such as the Sunday roast), heat simply transfers from the large heat mass to the small one. There is virtually no air movement in the oven so flavours stay intact, food stays moister. The design is thanks to a 1920s Swedish inventor, today it is still very similar to the original. Which means that energy efficiency is appalling (that is my description, AGA use the words ‘surprisingly economical’). An oil […]
An unusual warm air job using a Bosch Greenstar boiler
This is a house in a remote location near Maidstone, Kent. Some 200 years old, it was bought in a semi derelict condition over 35 years ago by the present owner, whose late husband was an architect. He remodelled and partially rebuilt the house, retaining all the period charm, but incorporating modern upgrades, including adding ducted warm air heating. The heating plant room was around the back of the house in an external cupboard, and the original warm air unit (oil fired) was replaced around 14 years ago by a local contractor. This 1990s unit, a Lennox oil fired cabinet, […]
Kidd boiler removed
The venerable Kidd Very High Efficiency (VHE) boiler is one of my favourites. Designed for Archie Kidd’s personal use in 1959, and then productionised in 1982, it has been the forerunner in condensing high efficiency technology in the UK for 30 years. Forget all the stories you hear about the Vaillant this, or the Worcester that, or the Baxi Bla Bla, the Kidd VHE was the first and last, the design is still current today, and 98% unchanged. OK, so you’ve got a Potterton Kingfisher and it is still going after 25yrs? Not a big deal. The Kidd was available […]
Oil boiler goes up chimney
OK. so we’ve covered a Worcester -Bosch gas boiler using an existing chimney, so here’s an oil boiler version. Sticking with Worcester-Bosch, this one is a Camray Greenstar 18/25 Utility model. We’re in a remote area south of Dorking, Surrey, accessed via a long farm track. The property had a Trianco oiler, made around 16 years ago, with a leaking heat exchanger. This is the end of the road for an oil boiler, because the heat exchanger is the whole metal frame of the boiler. Trianco have always been a budget boiler manufacturer, and have, as a company, seemingly lurched […]
