Worcester Bosch have recently brought out a new range of floor standing boilers. Designed to replace the inefficient Potterton Kingfisher, Ideal Mexico and other floor standing boilers of old, this new unit looks similar, and in most situations can be fitted directly in place of the original.
Our customer lived in a large house in Banstead, Surrey. Being a retired doctor of engineering, he knew his old 125,000 BTu Potterton Kingfisher was not going to last much longer, and rather liked the idea of swapping a 65% efficient boiler for a 91% efficient one.
New Worcester FS42 CDi during installation
He especially liked the idea of not having to relocate the boiler, or being told that a wall hung unit was the only viable option.
We recommended the new Worcester Greenstar FS42CDi, FS being short for floorstanding. The new boiler is slightly more powerful than the old unit, but still uses less gas at full power, such is the value of condensing high efficiency Band A boilers.
We found that the gas supply from the meter was significantly undersized for the old boiler, suggesting it had never reached full output. As a Gas Safe Registered business, Hot Water and Central Heating had to replace the gas supply pipe from the other end of the house with a new larger diameter copper pipe.
The flue arrangements for the old boiler involved a large 8″ vertical pipe passing through a single storey pitched roof and then running up the side of the building. We proposed removing this and fitting a new room sealed flue system in a different position on the pitched roof.
Our roofer moving the flue outlets
Our partner roofing company made an excellent job of removing the old vertical flue equipment, sealing the old hole with matching tiles and creating a new outlet slightly further down the pitched roof, to meet Worcester Bosch exhaust distance requirements.
Old flue laid to rest
Our work also involved replacing and relocating some radiators in the hall area with our favourite Vogel & Noot panel radiators.
As per usual, the system was comprehensively Powerflushed and then dosed with Fernox F1 corrosion inhibitor.
Our customer was given a 5 year warranty on the new Worcester boiler, covering all parts and labour until 2014.
Finally, we received a glowing recommendation from the customer;
“We are pleased with the boiler and once again I repeat how I appreciated the quality of Tim’s plumbing work. We will be happy to recommend your company to family and friends. Do feel free to use this recommendation freely because as I said to you, I am very critical of the work of most of the tradesman that have worked in my house, so it is rather rare for me to be willing to recommend someone so freely”. Dr W.
