Blades Heating Oxted closed for business in 2023
After nearly 120 years in Oxted this company closed its doors in February 2023, we understand all the staff have gone and the buildings are being sold for redevelopment. Hot Water & Central Heating Ltd are located nearby Oxted, in Edenbridge, we have been established just 21 years! We don’t do AGA cooker maintenance (we have always been a Heritage Cooker specialist instead) but we can maintain your heating systems, whether Oil, Gas, LPG or electric, domestic or commercial. Our number is 01732 866282 or you can email us at info@hwch.co.uk. Please look at our web site if you would […]
What are we doing now?
Servicing: We continue to service equipment we have put in over the last 20+ years for our loyal customers. This includes domestic, light commercial gas and oil, together with LPG and warm air. We also maintain heat pumps that we have installed. We now offer servicing of equipment we haven’t put in, in most cases; this will exclude heat pumps not installed by us. Repairs: We can carry out out heating related repairs on most Natural Gas, LPG, Warm Air, and Oil fired equipment. We also have a lot of experience with controls, zoning etc, especially Honeywell (aka Resideo) Evohome. […]
Business Update –
Posts have been far and few for a while, there’s a good reason for this. Running an installation company is hard work, and used to take 70 – 80 hours a week. Jacqui would man the phones, and deal with the accounts and all other administration; we would never have any spare time for holidays and hobbies. Neither of us are getting younger (corny, I know) so we decided to step back a little. More on what we are now doing, in the next post.
Grand Designs?
In an occasional ‘comment’ post, I want to warn my blog readers about the perils of ‘research’ on the internet. Earlier this year we were approached by an insolvency company looking for a quote to fit 20 electrical fan heaters into a development of 2 year old ‘eco houses’ in the UK. I could tell you the whole story but I don’t want to get into trouble so I am going to have to be vague about where they are. Their email said that these 20 fan heaters would be put into the eco home development, which seemed incongruous, as […]
Oil combination boiler updates Kent Oast House
Our customer had very recently moved to a picturesque Oast House near Headcorn, Kent. Oast Houses are typically found in Kent and although no longer used for their original purpose, retain the round towers and pitched roofs so beloved by picture postcards. Our customer wanted to maximise their internal space, which is always at a premium in a round house and this meant the larder had to be vacated of a poorly maintained Firebird heat only oil boiler; and the bright yellow oil fired AGA also had to go. Sadly, oil fired AGAs are no longer desirable, being temperamental, old, […]
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 […]
Archie Kidd boiler replaced (*) with another oil boiler pioneer
Our customer lives in Kent in a 1890s set of railway construction workers cottages. When the property was refurbished in 2004, he specified an Archie Kidd (Thermal) VHE Model 1 oil boiler. This was before the UK Government had latched onto condensing boilers being the future. In fact Archie Kidd had designed his Model 2 prototype in 1959 as part of his strive for energy to be conserved and not wasted needlessly. The Kidd Model 1 should last in excess of 30 years, so it was a shame to remove this now discontinued British leader in the history of heating […]
Navien Oil Boiler Cascade replaces Biomass plant
For this case study, we are on a 660 acre farm on the Surrey/Kent borders, comprising a number of industrial units, home and other uses, where once 6000 pigs used to roam. The owners of the farm complex were influential with some of the first biomass developments, and while advising other users over 20 years ago, they fitted a plant in their farm industrial area. Their Farm2000 biomass plant used timber and other waste, and was connected to a large underground steel pipework distribution system. Heat on the lucky units and houses connected to the system was unmetered, and it […]
Kensington large house boiler renewal in lockdown
This installation started as a phone enquiry relating to a house in the Kensington area of London in early 2021. The story, relayed by owner’s son in law, was that his parents had a light commercial boiler that had failed some months earlier, and they had found it difficult locating a contractor prepared to consider utilising the existing chimney for a new boiler. As we are based in Kent, Kensington is a bit of a schlep to drive for a quotation. We have done a fair bit of work in Kensington during 2020, much of it that would make really […]
