Relocating all the equipment in the cellar
Our customer, near Woolwich, in South East London, has a charming Victorian house in a quiet residential street. There is a substantial cellar that has recently been lowered and made more usable. Our brief was to find a way of moving all boiler and hot water cylinder equipment into the basement, to enable the upper floor to be remodelled, the kitchen enlarged and also a possible loft extension to take place. Ideally, the boiler would be fitted in the basement, together with a new mains pressure unvented cylinder. This presented us with a set of problems, mainly in terms of […]
A cold chill for Fordcombe CoE Primary School
Today we’re near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, to look at Fordcombe Primary Church of England School. Our brief was to get the heating working properly in the main building. Our customer had experienced ongoing problems over the past few years with radiators not heating up properly – or at all – and were having to rely on numerous electric heaters to supplant the failing system. In the main classroom, half the radiators didn’t work. Efforts from their maintainer had amounted to little or no improvement, and involved changing the thermostat and a few other misguided remedies. The customer had obtained two […]
Listed Building in Kent gets a new boiler and 12 zone iPhone control
The brief was to replace an old Potterton boiler in the basement with a new unit, and make the system more efficient. Spread over 3 floors and a cellar, this building is Grade 2 listed, and therefore represents a challenge when alterations to building services are required. We looked into replacing the boiler in the cellar with a modern condensing unit, and relining the chimney. However, there were adjacent chimney pots that were in use, and also there were plans for the cellar which meant that our customer would prefer the boiler to be resited to an otherwise unused store […]
Mono Evohome gets switched into Colour Evohome – plus 35% saving on gas bills
Our customer, a music composer and publisher, had engaged ourselves to replace their Ideal Classic boiler for a new Worcester Bosch 15Ri in early 2013, and asked for the new Honeywell Evohome to be fitted when it was launched this year (2014). We returned to service the boiler and upgrade the Evohome Mono (as it is now called) to the new Colour version, and add hot water control to the Megaflo HW cylinder. The new colour controller with iPhone control offers 12 zones instead of 8, so most rooms in this property are now individually temperature controlled. A confessed gadget […]
Listed building gets a new boiler and Evohome zoning
Our customer bought a fantastic building constructed in 1868, located in Carshalton, Surrey. Listed inside and outside, it was built to the requirements of the author Mark Rutherford (real name William Hale White). It incorporates many interesting features, for instance the inside walls are three bricks thick, because Mr White required silence and solitude in his work. The chimneys were all internal to the building, to minimise heat loss. A Victorian eco house, no less. We were asked to upgrade the existing installation of heating, which dated back to the 1980s. Although the radiators and pipework were in reasonable condition, […]
Dental Surgery makes some more space
Today we are at the dentists; Brenchley Dental, which is (unsurprisingly) in Brenchley, near Royal Tunbridge Wells. This is a very busy practice, sited in an attractive building that was once, many years ago, a rural telephone exchange. The dentists have three surgeries here, but want to add a fourth. In order to accommodate this expansion, an office needed to be moved and there was an old Trianco boiler in the way, together with an elderly hot water cylinder in a wall cupboard. Receptionists were feeling the heat from these items in the summer, too. Originally, Brenchley Dental were intending […]
Worcester Bosch Warm Air?
Interesting split level house in Kenley For this post we are in the hills of Kenley. Surrey (UK). Our customer has recently bought this house, which is on four levels and was constructed in the early 1970s. The brief was to renew the warm air system (the customer did not want radiators) but put in a more efficient system that could also heat up a much larger hot water cylinder quickly. The existing system used a Lennox gas warm air heater and an electric heated hot water cylinder. The customer had noticed that although there was a prominent air duct […]
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. […]
Hot Water & Central Heating and The Raw Chef
This week, we’ve been working in Brixton, in South London, in a converted factory building close to a windmill. I’ve been to Brixton countless times, and although I appreciate it is a trendy area, I never realised they had a full sized windmill. If you want to know more about the Brixton Windmill (or don’t believe there is a Windmill in Brixton) see here. The factory was converted in around 2003, and each unit was designed differently inside. With 4m high ceilings, enormous glass brick windows and concrete screeded floors, this is an amazing, unique property conversion. It is home […]
Warm air and radiators, one property, one boiler
For this post, we are in Fetcham, in the area of Leatherhead, Surrey. Our customer had a 1970s house that has been comprehensively updated, including a significant extension which was built around 12 yrs ago with radiators. The existing part of the property retained the original warm air heating, in this case using an old Lennox G8 unit under the hallway stairs. Hot water was provided by a conventional cylinder, this was heated by the boiler being used for radiators, a Baxi Solo 3, in the garage. The warm air unit had been the subject of various warning notices over […]
