A few weeks next to the seaside
Here we have a large private residence in an exclusive area of Hove, near Brighton. Our client had just purchased the property, and engaged us following finding this blog on our web site. There were two main tasks; firstly, one of the two boilers for the property had failed and was beyond economical repair. The second problem was the water supply. The road is on the top of a hill overlooking the coast and the water flow rate was very poor, in the region of just 8 litres per minute. The static pressure was also poor, varying between 1.0-1.5 bar. […]
The Full Monty
Our customer in Warlingham, Surrey, UK was having a substantial extension to the side and rear of the property. We were asked to specify a replacement for the existing Lennox warm air system, using a mixture of radiators and underfloor heating. Numerous bathrooms in the house and a new annexe were to be converted to mains pressure hot and cold water systems. We designed a four zone heating system, for maximum energy efficiency. An unvented hot water system augmented by a TWS water boosting accumulator supplied the bathrooms. A Worcester 30CDi boiler provided the engine room function. At the customer’s […]
Move boiler down the garden
Here we are near Tunbridge Wells. Our customer had an old wall mounted Boulter Camray oil boiler on the rear of his house. The unit was beyond redemption, having had a small internal fire. He quite fancied moving the boiler further away from the house, so we looked into moving it down the garden. Our customer was a builder, so he created a neat pipe trench and raised boiler plinth to our specifications. The property has a river running nearby, which has been known to flood, so the raised platform will protect his investment! We suggested a Worcester-Bosch Camray external […]
New Viessmann heat-only in Edenbridge, Kent
Our client lives in our base town of Edenbridge, Kent, UK. The old boiler, a Potterton Netaheat, was in a fragile state, so we recommended replacing it with a Viessmann 100 Compact. It’s a Compact because it will fit inside a typical wall cupboard. This boiler is Viessmann’s latest small domestic boiler, called a WB1B, and is very well made amongst the competition. Featuring a heavyweight unique stainless steel heat exchanger, with an aluminium front burner plate, this is one boiler which looks like you might get 15 years out of it. It is simple, but ruggedly constructed. We’d fit […]
Condensing boiler using old chimney stack
This is another installation example of a situation where it is requested that we fit a new high efficiency boiler to an old chimney stack. We are in the town of Sevenoaks, Kent (UK) where there is a 35 year old floor standing Potterton boiler in the breakfast room, using a flue passing inside a brick chimney. We specified a Viessmann Compact WB1B 26Kw unit, with a sealed system chimney liner. This allowed us to install a room-sealed boiler using the stack for exhaust and fresh air inlet. We removed the old boiler, rationalised the pipework. The customer then had […]
Refurbish 20 year old Kidd Condensing boiler
Refurbish a 20 year old condensing boiler? If you have to read this twice, then you probably haven’t got a Kidd VHE. Our subject of this blog is a 1990 Kidd Oil Model 1 unit in Canterbury, which had been ‘serviced’ in recent years by a contractor who was not familiar with the product, or condensers generally. The condense drains were all completely blocked and full of shale deposits, causing damage to the upper part of the boiler and casing. This had probably gone unchecked for a number of years. As a result, the projected 30 yr lifspan had been […]
Condensing boiler in cellar and chimney liner
Over to the picturesque Sussex town of Horsham, where we have a beautiful listed residence in the protected heritage quarter of the town. British Gas condemned the old floorstanding Potterton boiler in the cellar, and they and other contractors suggested that the only solution was the relocation of a new boiler at the other end of the house, involving unsightly pipework throughout. The existing defunct boiler was flued up a very old chimney weaving through 3 floors; we suggested fitting a new Viessmann Compact 26Kw boiler in the cellar. The existing system was very old, the cylinder was around 60 […]
Unusual house in Reigate, Surrey, gets unique underfloor heating
This property had an old HarcoPak, which is an integrated hot water cylinder and cold water storage tank, mounted in a frame on the 1st floor. It was heated by an old Potterton Kingfisher 100BF floorstanding boiler, which had been installed with a flue a couple of inches from the rear door and an undersized gas pipe; both of which were contrary to the gas regs at the time the house was constructed, and still are. We removed the Potty boiler, leaving a large hole for the on site building team of Mizon Builders to brick up. We relocated the […]
Kent Church has a new condensing boiler
Our photo shows Dan in contemplation, in the graveyard of St John the Evangelist, in Hildenborough, Kent. Actually, he’s assisting in a purging operation at the gas meter box. This church, constructed over 100 years ago, was heated by an old 86kW Ideal Buccaneer commercial boiler. The boiler had a reputation for breaking down in the hour of need (eg: coldest days of winter) and the management team had found the only way to minimise the chances of failure was to have the boiler on in periods of the summer. The heating was controlled by a bewildering set of high/low […]
DPS Heatstore solves loft conversion challenge
The house pictured, located in Croydon, Surrey UK, was being extended into the loft space. The loft tanks for the hot water system and radiator header tanks had to be removed to make way for the new accommodation. Our challenge was to provide a new heating and high pressure cold & hot water system in an 1900mm high cellar, which could replicate the shower performance of the existing powerful pumped tank fed system in the loft. Furthermore, it should support the use of extra bathrooms in the loft area. This project raised a number of challenging problems. We could have […]
