Today we are in the Auckland Surgery, Norwood, London.  It is a busy doctors practice serving the local community and is always buzzing with patients.

I didn’t knock over the sign

Our GP customers had a maintenance contract with one of the major gas companies (with a ‘British’ in their name) and over the years they had become a bit disillusioned with the conflicting advice and multiple warning notices their engineering staff had given.  Most involved ventilation, and a considerable amount of time and effort had been expended by our client in meeting the ever more dramatic requests.

As a result, the Potterton Kingfisher II boiler cupboard had so many holes in the walls and ceilings we were surprised there was enough material left to hold the roof up.  A simple examination showed that the ventilation requirements had been misinterpreted and miscalculated resulting in lots of unnecessary damage and cost.  Not to mention paperwork.

A quiet moment, earlier the car park was full

As the boiler was becoming very noisy (kettling we call it, because it sounds like a kettle just off the boil) we recommended replacement with a new Worcester Bosch 40CDi Regular wall hung boiler.

Gary starts to remove the old floorstanding boiler, Powerflush machine in foreground

Interestingly, whilst the other contractor had been busy preoccupying themselves with adding more airbricks, they had failed to notice that the internal gas pipework was undersized from new and providing the boiler with just 14mB of gas pressure (19mB would be more acceptable).

Our works therefore included replacing the gas supply pipe from the meter to the boiler for a larger diameter one, and we also lifted the heating header tank to prevent ‘pumping over’.  There was an old non-functioning Myson air convector unit in the downstairs office, we replaced this with a new Smiths Environmental unit, which give great pleasure to the staff, none of whom could remember the old one ever working!  They were sceptical that the new one would be any good, but they are now convinced of its’ merits.

The new flue located at the roof apex (Crystal Palace transmitter tower in the background)

The new vertical Bosch flue was installed in conjunction with our skilled roofing contractor, and because the new boiler is ‘room sealed’ (in other words, the air to support the gas being burnt is delivered in a sealed pipe from outside, separating the combustion process from the room) no major ventilation provision was needed.

The system was Powerflushed using our Norstrom machine, together with being Magnacleansed and Vibrocleansed at the same time, meaning that any dirt in the radiators and pipework would have the best possible guarantee of being extracted.  This is our standard provision, which is something to bear in mind as your installer adds a chemical and runs a bit of hot water out of the system and tells you he’s cleaned it.  Sadly, that is virtually ineffective, but sooo much quicker.

New Worcester Bosch 40CDi boiler in position

A Worcester Bosch System Filter was added, upgrading the boiler manufacturer warranty to 8 years parts and labour.

Finally, we fitted new controls and around 28 new Honeywell VT200 thermostatic radiator valves.

We were subsequently hired by one of the team to do their boiler replacement at home, so that was nice!