Greenstar 8000 LPG 70Kw Boiler Cascade in listed building
Our customer bought a large house near Ashford Kent, in a rural setting. They knew the property needed a lot of work, the previous owner had dedicated his life to refurbishing it, and to be frank, there was an awful lot still to be done when he handed over the keys. This was a refreshing refurbishment to be asked to get involved with; our customer had read this blog from time to time, and we were on his list for this project before we knew about it. Unlike some customers, who would buy a large property, have it completely remodelled […]
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 […]
Nursing Home fast track boiler plant cascade renewal during COVID lockdown
Our case study today refers to a job we carried out in the first lockdown in 2020. A local care home had earlier used our services to repair a Worcester boiler in a wing of their building. We got a call during the first COVID lockdown, when everyone was at home and the roads were deserted. Their main boiler plant was giving problems and they wanted us to look at it. The main boiler room looked quite ordered from the outside; two flues sticking out had cages and it looked purpose made. however once the door was opened things didn’t […]
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 […]
ATAG Opentherm Evohome Sevenoaks
Today we are in Sevenoaks, Kent, in a road where we now have installed at least three boilers, and three Evohome multi zone systems too! Our customer knew about heating systems, and chose an ATAG i series boiler. He wanted a unit that was of high quality manufacture, and one that could use Opentherm controls, so that the house could modulate the boiler intelligently. As the local ATAG and Honeywell Evohome specialists, we were asked to advise and quote for the job. A leaking Ideal condensing boiler was scrapped, and the plan was to fit the ATAG in the same […]
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 […]
Move boiler to cellar and convert to unvented hot water
We are in the Camberwell area, close to London. Our customers have a lovely Victorian house, but unfortunately, the boiler and the hot water cylinder are in a cupboard in the master bedroom. This makes the room unnecessarily warm in the summer, and of course, you can hear the boiler operating. Our customers wished, if possible, to relocate the boiler into the cellar area. Unfortunately the cellar area was underground, with no apertures to ground level, and it had no drainage. And restricted headroom. So that’s all good then. We found a small bookcase in the hallway that had originally […]
Grade II listed building condensing boiler using chimney
Today we are in a house in a beautiful part of the Garden of England, in other words, Kent. The house is in a small village reminiscent of the one filmed many years ago for a Hovis advert, with cobbled streets and high pavements. Our customer had bought a house with an old Potterton Osprey light commercial in the cellar, and British Gas had said that many parts were no longer available. Other contractors had suggested the only options involved siting a new boiler on an external wall; this would have resulted in lots of unwanted visible pipework but also […]
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 […]
