Large Church installation; 3 plus 1 boilers

Earlier this year we were invited to provide a costed design solution for a new boiler plant at St Johns Church, Tunbridge Wells. A large, Grade II listed building, probably the largest church in the area, it comprises an enormous high ceiling worship space, with the addition of vestry and offices. The church building management team knew pretty much what they wanted to achieve, helped by their professional engineering roles in the electrical power industry. We found a cascaded set of three commercial 50Kw cast iron Ideal atmospheric boilers. The Church technical team had previously fitted a BMS (Building Management […]
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 […]
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 […]
Johnson & Starley warm air replaced by Worcester Bosch boiler and EasyControl

This case study begins in a terraced house in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. A kitchen renewal has a short while ago necessitated the warm air heater being relocated into the garage. Our customer had some concerns over the way this part of the work had been carried out, and it turned out they were right to be worried. Generally speaking, moving a warm air unit is not easy… there’s ductwork deep under the floors, which are usually concrete, and most older warm air units have a vertical ‘open’ flue, akin to a fireplace. So moving the box itself isn’t difficult, it […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Quick Combi installation. Installation after online quote by internet firm turns into a disaster.

Today we’re in Sevenoaks, UK. This one is an interesting story, in essence our customer needed a new boiler, their existing one was leaking badly, but contractually it is more complex. They chose one of the new breed of internet based suppliers, where a quote is given after filling out some internet questions with the help of pictures and tick boxes. If this is acceptable, a deposit is taken, the job is booked and you can (apparently) sit back in the comfort of knowing all is well. The internet based company they chose had all the right credentials, including peer […]
Ideal Istor finally gets the heave ho

Our customers in today’s case study bought a ‘new build’ around 8 years ago, in the Redhill area of Surrey. Inside, these properties are very spacious, and the rear elevations have got multiple Velux windows, L shaped lounges, very light and open. Unfortunately, the developers chose to ruin their good work by fitting an Ideal iStor boiler. Our customer had fortunately taken out a British Gas Homecare contract on theirs, but after years of visits including a protracted one from the manufacturer themselves, and having replaced every part, some more than once, plus a powerflush etc, they decided it was […]
Worcester-Bosch 1 Keston 0

For this case study, we find ourselves in Oxted, Surrey. We like Oxted, because it is a lovely, virtually unspoilt town (if you exclude Morrisons) full of coffee shops and yummy mummies. I suppose it is similar to Sevenoaks with all the good bits squeezed into a smaller area. It is also very close to Hot Water & Central Heating Ltd HQ, so we get a lot of projects there. A larger house, this had a Keston C55 boiler and a significant number of radiators. The Keston boiler had been unreliable (no surprises there) so we suggested a Worcester-Bosch alternative. […]