Our customer lives in Oxted, Surrey, and had an Ideal combination boiler initially installed under the Warmfront scheme around 7 years ago.

Not uncommonly for this model, a plethora of parts had been fitted over the years to try to keep it working, but without any success.  Some of the old parts were still on site.

We recommended fitting a new Worcester Bosch Greenstar 28i Junior condensing combination boiler.

Worcester Bosch Greenstar safely installed in cupboard

This new unit easily fitted inside the old boiler cupboard, and was considerably quieter than its predecessor.

This was quite an easy job (makes a change) because all the pipework was in good order and there was a nearby drain (needed for a condensing boiler).
We ran the new condense drain in 32mm tube, as this is recommended by Worcester Bosch for outdoor applications to prevent freezing, which commonly occurs in bad weather when normal 21mm pipe is used.  If you have a Bosch boiler displaying ‘EA’ in freezing weather, you can bet it is a blocked drain……

We fitted a Bosch plume diversion kit to the flue, to direct the steam (called plume) from the low eaves area and thus preventing damage from plolonged exposure to damp.

Just inside the eaves - new flue and plume extension

As usual, the warranty was extended to 5 yrs, covering our customer for any breakdowns until 2014, using the 320 strong (at last count) Worcester service force.

Our customer owns a terraced town house in London SE19.

It was late when we finished

He had considered a solar hot water system in the loft, as he wanted to minimise his family impact on the environment;  with solar hot water it is important to maximise the hot water storage, or you quickly run out of solar heated water and have to use the boiler.

Unfortunately, the design of these properties leaves a low headroom in the loft, restricting the size of cylinder, and there is limited weight capacity for large volumes of water.

So, instead, he decided to fit the Vaillant ecoTEC+ 937 hybrid combination boiler.  The wall hung unit comprises an 837 combi with a set of hot water storage tanks built in a pod at the back.  This makes the boiler quite large and heavy (getting on for the size of a washing machine), but it delivers a superb performance of 20 litres per min for the first 200 litres of drawoff.

We fitted the new boiler on the brick gable wall and used a vertical flue system.  Five new radiators were also supplied and fitted, and we were fortunate to be able to use some existing ductwork from a warm air installation to hide most of the pipework.

New Vaillant 937 in the loft

The Vaillant 937 is a good alternative to an unvented cylinder and boiler in a medium sized house, because it takes up relatively little space.  Other similar solutions offered by Hot Water & Central Heating include the Worcester Highflow CDi range.

The house, located in Smallfield, near Gatwick, had a conventional heating system with a copper cylinder, water tank etc.  The old boiler had been mounted in a bedroom cupboard, which is always best avoided for noise reasons.

You can just see the new boiler flue on the roofline......

We fitted a new Worcester Bosch Greenstar 37CDi combination boiler in the loft space, on a custom made partition.

New 37Kw boiler mounted in loftspace

The Worcester boiler has a high hot water flow rate, which uses over 37Kw of power.  This necessitated a new gas pipe, which we connected via the existing external recessed meter housing and routed into the loft space.

We're pointing at our new gas connection

The new boiler system rendered the hot water cylinder and tanks redundant, leaving some useful space under the stairs for a cupboard.

New coats cupboard in the making (HW cylinder was located here)

Finally, we fitted the excellent Honeywell CM927 wireless thermostat unit to control the heating in the house.

Honeywell CM927 room thermostat

This house was in great internal condition with white carpets everywhere – heating installers hate white carpets!  But the owners made our chores a pleasure, even putting some of their own dust sheets down before we arrived!

The house, located in leafy Caterham, Surrey, was built in the early 60s and was heated by a warm air ducted system.  In common with many installations of this period, some rooms had no direct ducting and relied on leaving the doors open. 

The subject of this post

Our customer wished to use the large cupboard currently occupied by the warm air system for storage.  They also wanted a mains pressure delivery of hot and cold water, and minimum wastful stored hot water.

Warm air cupboard after removal of old heater, new pipes shown

We suggested the new Worcester Bosch Highflow 440CDi.  This is a floor mounted unit, recently updated from the Highflow 440.  With identical dimensions to a washing machine, the new Highflow has a new control panel and has more flexible flue outlet arrangements.

Worcester Bosch Highflow 440CDi - nearly completed

The Highflow 440 incorporates a small internal unvented store of hot water, which enables it to deliver up to 20 litres of hot water a minute.  Being able to be sited under a worktop, it is a very neat space efficient solution.

Finished!

It is always difficult fitting radiators in a property formerly fitted with warm air, because there are pipes to run.  In this property there was a solid ground floor, but we found ways to minimise the visual impact of pipe runs.

Vogel & Noot Vienna Line radiator

Our customer agreed to specify our preferred Vogel and Noot radiators, which have a modern neat panelled appearance.  The single panel versions fit very close to the wall indeed, minimising visual impact in the room.  Honeywell radiator valves were used throughout, as usual.

Pipework can often be hidden on the other side of the wall

The new Highflow 440 CDi can be used with the Worcester outside plume management kit, which we fitted to take the flue output to a satisfactory high level discharge point, where it was unlikely to be a nuisance.

The new plume management kit now available on the 440CDi comes in useful here! That's a lot of steam.

The hot water cylinder and water tanks were removed, the Worcester Highflow now manages the supply of heating and hot water for the entire property singlehanded.

As a Worcester A+ installer, our customer enjoys a 5 year parts and labour warranty on his new boiler.  Our experience with previous Worcester Highflow models suggests he is unlikely to need it, but nevertheless it is covered until 2014!

Period house in Warlingham, Surrey

Our client has a woodworking business and was constructing an imaginative barn type conversion for their property, with lots of oak beams in an unusual semi circular design.

Firstly, we installed a Heritage Cooker in the existing kitchen.  Fitted with brass trim and a Jade Green enamelled finish, it was also specified with body colour hotplate covers.

Heritage Cooker

This particular Heritage Cooker was a gas fired unit, most of the Heritages we fit are oil fired in very rural locations.

In common with all 3 oven Heritage units, the control panel concealed behind the upper left hand door enables the unit to be timed according to the user requirements. 

Showing hidden control panel

From cold, the Heritage is ready for cooking in as little as 25 minutes.  Try telling this to an AGA owner and they start getting very defensive.  Especially in the summer when their cooker is making the kichen intolerably hot and using completely unnecessary amounts of fuel!

An old Potterton boiler and associated hot water cylinder was removed, and a new Vaillant ecoTEC+ 937 hybrid combination boiler was installed in the extension, together with a new water main.

Vaillant 937

We have fitted lots of this model over the past 18 months.  ecoTEC937 uses a buffer store of preheated hot water, to give a performance of around 200 litres of hot in the first 10 minutes, all from a (large) wall hung boiler.  This is a boiler that is a viable alternative for a small unvented cylinder installation for water delivery, if there is only 25 litres per minute coming in the property.

Separate circuits were installed for the underfloor heating system in the extension and the main radiators in the house.

Underfloor heating and radio controls

The underfloor heating manifold (and electrical consumer unit above) will be concealed inside a larder kitchen unit later in the project.

The underfloor heating is fitted with the OJ electronics radio thermostat system, so our customer has 4 zones of independently controllable underfloor heating, plus a separately timed and programmable radiator system, giving 5 addressable zones of heating in the house.

All ready for Christmas 2008, and the floor tiler!

This customer had a very old Worcester combi in their petite kitchen, in a rural location near Merstham, Surrey.

The old boiler had been installed with the flue too close to a window, and in addition some leakage had resulted in damage to the floor.

The old boiler with the casing removed

We suggested relocating the new replacement outside, so more space could be liberated in the house.  Also it meant that the boiler flue ‘plume’ would not be immediately under the kitchen view of the garden.

A new Worcester Bosch Greenstar oil combination boiler was fitted on a concrete plinth under an old carport, to the side of the building.

Our professional roofing contractor made the roof weathertight around the flue.

Finished article, (and Tim, our technical manager).

Our customers could now enjoy a larger kitchen, which is now being refitted, and a more efficient boiler.

As a Worcester accredited installer, our customer has a 5 year parts and labour warranty on the boiler.

New boiler being commissioned

Exterior boiler module and roof flue system

Our client had a delightful detached house in a secluded road in Oxted, Surrey.

The house had been extended into the loft, and had ended up with three luxury bathrooms.  Unfortunately, the hot water storage cylinder was jammed under the stairs and was too small.  And there were three separate shower pumps (each installed by plumbers with every new bathroom).

The shower pumps were noisy, one was a negative head type (so it suffered from running for short periods in the middle of the night), the hot water cylinder could not be sited anywhere else, and the water tanks took up valuable space in the eaves.

The boiler was an old Potterton Kingfisher light commercial 60Kw unit, mounted in an external boiler house.  Our customer wanted to remove the water tanks and cylinder from the house, and relocate everything into the small outside boiler cupboard.

And she wanted the boiler flue of the new unit to go up the existing chimney.

With this set of rather onerous requirements, there were a shortage of heating and plumbing companies with suitable solutons.

The old boiler was from heat calculations, considered to be oversized at 60Kw.  In fact, a 35Kw boiler would deliver a more than adequate heating performance for the property. 

We estimated that the hot/cold water requirement would be circa 40 litres per minute.  We choose the ACV Heatmaster combination boiler unit, because this can deliver this incredible flow rate into a domestic property.

Most unvented cylinders struggle to deliver this kind of performance, and here we have a combined boiler and hot water generator that can cover all the bases in one simple unit.  Truth is, whilst the ACV is billed as a combination boiler, it is really a hybrid solution, being a croos between a heatstore and an unvented cylinder.

It uses the trusted ACV tank-in-tank technology, and can run in full condensing (high efficiency) mode even when producing hot water.  The heatstore runs at 85C and directly heats the house and indirectly heats the hot water, in an enveloped tank.

The ACV was adapted to run ‘open flue’ up the chimney.  Our customer needed some roof repairs so the scaffolding for the twin walled condensing smooth liner was shared between HWCH and their roofing contractor.

Of course, running a mains fed water system to serve three bathrooms requires a good quality water main. 

In common with most houses, our customer’s water main struggled to deliver 22 litres per minute, and we were looking for closer to 50 litres per minute when those three bathrooms were being used.

To improve the peak water flow rate, a GAH accumulator was fitted in the boiler plant room directly behind the ACV Heatmaster. 

It was a tight fit in there, but what a performance punch we packed in!

Instantaneous hot water, fully condensing performance, boosted water flow, three bathroom showers at the same time, and no plant inside the house.  On time, and on budget.